


Nogoaway's Freelancer Trashheap

by nogoaway



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AU, Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Multi, PWP, Pre-Series, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-01 23:49:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 21,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nogoaway/pseuds/nogoaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short fics, tumblr prompts, and whatever else I can't justify posting separately. Pairings are in chapter titles.</p>
<p>Check warnings for each chapter in the notes, please.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. look over here: Yorkalina

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Look over here. Yorkalina, Delta. Post-series/AU fluff. Rated T for York.

"Hey," York shouts, waving his arms above his head like he's signaling a plane in for a landing on top of the poorly-shingled roof "hey, Carolina! Look over here!"

  
_York_ , says Delta, at the same moment Carolina, her dingy tank-top spattered with robin's egg blue from where she's been painting the fence ("White picket, York, surely that's too much even for you") tips her head up to stare at him _I strongly discourage-_

  
'Your complaint has been noted, Dee,' York shoots back, digging the heel of his work boot into the gutter to brace himself.

  
"What is it?" Carolina sets the paintbrush down over the top of the can, perfectly straight.

  
_York, I really do not think-_

  
York blows her a kiss, and Carolina rolls her eyes, but she's smiling a little bit, York can tell. He grins goofily back at her for a slow moment (so lucky, holy shit, what even is his life), and then Carolina's eyes go wide a split second before he hears a creak of metal and the drainpipe breaks free from the roof. Delta tries to correct their balance, but without the suit in the equation all he can do is pile on warning messages to York's woefully human musculo-skeletal system. It goes about as well as a ship-borne supercomputer trying to open a slip-space path via a fax machine, and York's over the side of their quaint little 'fixer-upper' two-story before Delta can say he told him so.

  
Falling in Earth gravity is nauseating after so long space-side, and so startlingly fast that he doesn't realize he's stopped moving until Carolina's staring down at him, looking more amused than angry.

  
"You're a disaster," she informs him.

  
"You caught me," York realizes, when he notices the lack of overwhelming pain, and he squirms a little bit, but Carolina's arms are like iron bands and he's horizontal in between them.

  
"Just a reflex. You broke the drain pipe." Carolina makes one of her unimpressed faces, the 'I can't actually believe sometimes how stupid you are' one.

  
"Yeah. Uh, not that you having me in a bridal carry isn't totally progressive and kinda hot, but, you gonna put me down?"

  
She hums a little, like she's thinking about it. "Nah." She brushes a quick kiss over York's forehead, so she can't be _that_ angry about the pipe. They were gonna have to replace it anyway.

  
York flashes her a grin "Gonna carry me over the threshold, then?"

  
"Nope," Carolina says, and then York yelps because the world is spinning and he's suddenly vertical, only not the vertical he wanted "Got work to do."

  
York stares down at the lawn as Carolina adjusts her arm around his waist, holding him up over her left shoulder. Then she leans down and there's the sound of paint bristles sliding over wood again, rough and rhythmic.

  
"If all the blood wasn't running to my head," York declares "I would have such a hard on right now."

  
"I know," Carolina says.

  
"You're gonna get tired eventually," York folds his arms under his chest. When Carolina shrugs, he moves up and down a little.

  
"I know," she says.

  
The sun beats down on York's lower back where his shirt has rucked up. Delta makes a smug little noise.

  
"Okay," York closes his eyes and breathes in grass, and paint, and relief.  
  



	2. Letter- gen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: News; letter. Gen. Leonard and Carolina, pre-series. Angst. PG.

"You're mistaken," Leonard says, and hands the envelope back. Or, he would hand it back, but the uniform at the door doesn't take it, just keeps her arms, stiff in blue serge and white gloves, at parade rest along her sides. It's like something out of a period drama. He didn't think the service still did this. Just makes it more likely that it's a mistake. Or some kind of prank.

  
His hand with the envelope is still extended out the doorway, hovering over the porch. He's not wearing sleeves, and it's breezy, cool. That's why he has goosebumps.

  
"Are you Mr. Leonard Church?" The woman doesn't look him in the eye. If they thought sending women to deliver bad news would make it go down easier, they clearly picked the wrong one.

  
"Dr. Church," he corrects, automatically ("You don't stand up for yourself enough, Leonard. If you don't respect your accomplishments, how can you expect other people to?").

  
"Then I am sorry, but that letter is for you, sir."

  
"Yes," Leonard says, "I can  _see_ that. I am telling you that there's been a mistake."

  
"Dr. Church-"

  
"There's been a mix-up," he says, and pokes her in the chest with the sharp white corner of the envelope. It's heavy paper. Official. "Go talk to your CO. Get him to call Counselor Wallace, at HIGHCOM. He knows Allison. He'll sort it out."

  
The woman doesn't move, but her eyes flicker down to where the envelope is pressing underneath one of her ornate gold buttons.

  
"Leonard," Caty says from behind him, with the exact cadence of her mother's usual reproach "don't leave the door open, it lets bugs in, and then Mom has to squish them and there's guts everywhere."

  
"You heard the lady," Leonard wiggles the envelope under the button.

  
"I am sorry for your loss, sir," the uniform says, and takes one step back, setting her hat on her head. Then she turns on her heel and walks down off the porch towards the UNSC truck. Leonard watches her climb into the passengers side and shrug at the driver.

  
He'll throw the envelope away. They'll send a corrected one, once they realize there's been a mistake. It's trash day tomorrow anyway. He steps back inside and shuts the door on the sound of the engine turning over.

  
Caty stares up at him, looking stern. "Bugs," she repeats. "Bug guts."

  
"They're gross," Leonard agrees, and stoops down to gather her into a hug. She allows it for a good thirty seconds, her tiny arms clutching at his polo shirt. Leonard presses his mouth to her hair, her warm forehead, the impossibly soft shell of her ear.

  
"I'm hungry," Caty whines into his collar, and wriggles. Leonard kisses her temple again, her nose, feels tiny eyelashes flutter against his cheek.

  
"Just another minute, Princess, and I'll make us some dinner," he says. It's strange. He can't seem to let go of her.  
  



	3. Jolt! -maine/wash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #3: Jolt! Mainewash, post-Reconstruction (s6) finale. Angst, violence. PG-13.

Wash is running on caffeine, adrenaline, and hatred at this point, which isn't really that different from his usual cocktail of caffeine, adrenaline, and stubbornness. It keeps him focused on the terminal through the pain in his chest and the stuttering, violent sensation of Alpha detaching from his neural network. The Meta stops four yards from him, haloed in multicolored light, a prism casting refracted hues all along the sleek titanium walls of the facility. Theta is there, and Delta, and the twins, but he can't think about that right now, can't think about anything except the pulse, and Epsilon, and how much wetware they've jacked into him over the years-

  
"What's going on?" The blue beam sweeps along the tile, like the Director doesn't know where he should be pointing the camera. Wash would have felt vindicated, once, to hear that voice rise in panic. But now- Alpha leaps towards the Meta's helmet catch and the lights go out and the Meta roars, lurching across the floor, head in his hands.

  
_Not what you thought it would be, Sigma?_ Wash thinks, viciously, even though the sight of Maine twitching like that sends a surge of nausea through him _It's no picnic, is it, having one of them tear you apart--_

  
"Agent Washington, please. There is time. If you would just secure Agent Maine we could discuss this situation in a more civilized manner."

  
They must think he's really stupid.

  
"No," Wash says, and staggers towards the terminal, letting his pistol clatter to the floor "we can't." He slams his fist down with the knowledge that he's probably just killed himself, appreciating the hard, final sound of it, like a gavel.

  
"Thank you," chirps the terminal "Fail safe initiated. Activating Emp."

  
So much for dignity in his last moment. " _Emp_?! You have got to be fucking ki-"

  
There's a droning flood of sound so low it shakes his stomach rather than his ears, and then the facility goes dark and his armor locks up. The display flickers and dies. Wash hears, over the thrum of failing electronics, the sound of Maine's armor hitting the floor.

  
It's very quiet, then. He breathes. Coughs. It echoes in the useless shell of the helmet.

  
There's still a bullet in him. He should do something about that, but if he's breathing, then he's alive, he's alive, and Maine-

  
Wash peels off the gloves of his under-suit and scrambles at the armor locks. Plating thumps to the floor behind him as he stumbles forward in the dark. He hears his visor crack when the helmet lands and rolls, but he doesn't care. HUD's dead, anyway.

  
He can't see a thing, and he trips over Maine, lets the momentum carry him down until he's straddling the motionless heap on the floor, hands feeling for the familiar, round helmet. His thumbs find the manual locks. They're sticky with disuse, and dirt. He prays he isn't opening a coffin-- what use did Sigma have, after all, for Maine's body? _Matty's_ body, broad and strong and warm and just imperfect enough for Wash to know him anywhere, even in the dark-- the raised birthmark on his left pectoral, the crooked line of his nose that never healed right, his knuckles uneven and beaten to the texture of rough hide--

  
The smell isn't great, but it's not rotting flesh. Wash lets the helmet roll off to the side and reaches up. The face his hands cup is thin, and coarse with hair. Wash runs his thumbs along the mouth, feels thick, dry lips. A soft puff of warm air rolls over the skin of his hands, once. Then again.

  
Wash is shaking when he runs the tip of his left index finger down the mashed, crooked nose. It's him. It has to be. Wash presses his mouth to the mouth under his hands, ignoring the stillness, the dry, dirty, unresponsive flesh. The beard scratches.Everything about it is unfamiliar.

  
"Matty," Wash says-- even though he knew, the instant he kissed him, that it wasn't true anymore-- and the skin under his hands twitches. Then a huge hand grips him by the throat and holds him up and away like he weighs nothing.

 

Wash gags, and kicks reflexively, but he's weak from blood loss and surprise and weeks of this, weeks of marching and searching and commanding men who aren't his, who don't listen, who don't trust him, who he can't trust. Weeks of too little sleep and too much camp coffee and too many nights jumping when he thinks he hears South's voice ("What are you gonna do, Wash?"), when he sees a flicker of gold and thinks _York_ , when there's footsteps too close together to be North walking Theta to sleep. Weeks of waking up to the taste of blood in his mouth and the memory of the cold, cold medical wing on Sidewinder, the memory of being _abandoned_ , of being _betrayed_ , and gathering the bitterness of it up into a ball and swallowing it, _swallowing_ it, because he didn't have time to feel it. Weeks of nightmares and memories that aren't even _his_ , of paralyzing, nauseating grief for a woman he never knew, but whose death had set in motion the complete disaster of Wash's life, because the Director just couldn't let go. And the one person who might have been left, the _one_ person he was reasonably sure wasn't dead, the one person _he'd_ failed, instead of failing him--

  
The hand tightens, and his lungs burn. Wash claws ineffectually at his throat.

  
"Matty," he gasps again, because there's not enough air and he can't think to say anything else "it's me. It's-" _Washington_ "David".

  
There's a rolling, animal growl, and then Wash is in the air, and then Wash is on the floor again, and then Wash is nowhere, finally unconscious.

* * *

  
Wash coughs himself awake. His chest hurts, but it's a familiar hurt- puncture wound, deep, stuffed with anesthetized bio-foam. He's taken enough bullets in his life to recognize that particular sensation anywhere on his body. He opens his eyes.

  
His own face stares back at him, warped and gold. Maine's helmet tilts, and Wash's reflection slides off the visor like water.

  
He's on a bed. The room is small, and bright with humming florescent tubes. Maine is in between him and the door.

  
_I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention to your headaches_ , Wash thinks, but what he says is "who are you, then?"

  
Maine growls. The helmet's synthesizer is broken, so it's muffled, soft-sounding, but Wash hears it clearly.

  
"No," he says "not possible. It would have wiped out all electronics. You should be--" Wash trails off. _You should be Matty again_. But that was naive, wasn't it? As if the Meta was just Sigma with Matty on a leash, Matty buried under a pile of AI. As if Sigma hadn't done something permanent to him, hadn't merged and melded and changed him into something unrecognizable. As if Matty, leash or no leash, could ever have torn Theta out from North's head and left him there to suffocate in his own blood.

  
Maine-- the Meta-- just shrugs. Behind him, the door hisses and slides open.

  
The man who steps in is white, middle-aged, slightly overweight, and bald. The two MPs flanking him hold their rifles at identical 45 degree angles with the floor.

  
"Now that you're conscious, Mr. Barrington" he says, with a slight accent that Wash can't place "I should let you know that you're under arrest."

  
"Knock yourself out," Wash says, and closes his eyes.  
  



	4. our distance and that person- north/york

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #4: our distance and that person. North/York, implied Carolina/York. PG.

The first time York kisses him, they're both drunk. It's three days after Utah died, the first night North has been able to forget about it for more than a few minutes at a time, about watching the white-suited team hoist his body up onto a cot in medical, as if it were going to make any difference. They lived surrounded by infinite airless vacuum on all sides, and Utah suffocates in the one place they shouldn' t have to worry about it. North isn't the kind of guy who appreciates irony.  
  
York is, though, which is some kind of explanation for what they're doing right now, splayed out in the two big maroon leather easy chairs the Counselor keeps in his office, passing a bottle of Cisco (because Niner has a choke-hold on their liquor supply and also a _terrible_ sense of humor) back and forth. By the time York got the lock open and they stumbled inside, they were both too plastered to figure out how to turn on the lights. North had slapped something on the wall that might have been a light switch, but it stayed dark and instead of florescents buzzing on he heard faint music piping in from speakers somewhere to his left. It sounded classical. The sort of thing the Counselor liked, he figured. Calm. Sophisticated. Detached. There's dim starshine coming in from the massive window, though, and North can make out pale glints when York tilts his head the right way, light gliding across the lenses of his eyes, his white, wet teeth.  
  
"He didn't deserve it," North says, miserably, and York frowns at him.  
  
"Hey, man-"  
  
"Mitchel," it's not like York needs the clarification, but North feels it's more respectful to Utah to at least say his name "he didn't deserve that."  
  
"He was a good guy," York agrees.  
  
They sit in silence for a little longer. North lets his head loll onto the back of the chair and stares up at the dark ceiling, listens to the sad whine of ancient string instruments filling the space between them.  
  
York reaches over to take the bottle back. North had forgotten he was holding it. He tries to let go, but his fingers aren't working. It takes him a moment to figure out why- York's hand is resting over his on the neck of the bottle, warm fingers and palm pressing his to the glass.  
York tugs.  
  
"You have to-" North starts, trying to explain that in order for York to obtain the bottle, he's going to have to let go first, so North can let go, but there's too many gos in that sentence and North's confused himself, he's really quite drunk.  
  
York keeps tugging, and North's pulled far enough to the front of the seat that he has to get his feet under him or risk ending up with his ass on the floor. He can't quite catch his balance, though, and after a few stumbling steps he's yanked bodily on top of York. The space between them collapses.  
  
York's warm, and his sweatshirt is soft. North lets his face rest on the cotton pile of the hood and shifts enough of his weight onto York's chest that he can just sort of lay there, one knee tucked up on the cushion between York's legs, without sliding onto the floor. It's not terribly comfortable, but again, drunk.  
  
"Leggo," York mumbles, right into his ear. His breath tickles. If North were a dog, he thinks, he'd be able to twitch that ear, but instead all he can do is rub the side of his head against York's scratchy cheek to clear the itch off. York makes a grumbling, annoyed little noise, similar to the one he makes in the mornings before coffee.  
  
"You leggo," North says, and rearranges himself a little, looping his free arm across York's shoulder and over the back of the chair. He could probably fall asleep like this. York's warm, and the sweatshirt is soft, and his hair smells nice, even if the rest of him has the vaguely off scent of alcohol mixed with dry sweat.  
  
"Hey," York breathes into his hair, "c'mere."  
  
North looks up from his make-shift hoodie pillow, and catches a brief sheen of light on York's lips before York presses their faces together. It's the kind of disaster North hasn't suffered through since he was a teenager- York's drunk and it's dark and North has a big nose, and there's a few too many seconds of knocking into each other at awkward and occasionally painful angles. York makes his annoyed pre-coffee grumble again (and how stupid, thinks North, that he knows that noise so well, considering he's only known York for a month or so), and then there's broad, warm hands curving over his cheeks and temples, arranging his head.

Oh. North closes his eyes, not that it makes much difference, and lets York move him where he wants.  
  
Even drunk, York's skilled at this; North's standards for kissing might be low, he admits, but he's not entirely inexperienced, himself, and York's good- not slobbery or awkward once he's figured out how to get past bumping noses, but not gentle or tentative, either. His tongue darts at the corners of North's mouth, teeth teasing at his lower lip, and North gives in almost immediately, feeling dizzy with the warmth and the pleasure of simple human contact. He knows he's been lonely- ever since South got cold and competitive and grown up, he's been lonely- but until York kisses him North hasn't really understood how much. It's nice just to be curled up with someone, to rub his cheek over warm, slightly stubbled skin, to suck gently on York's lower lip and let York lap at his palette. It doesn't even feel particularly sexual. North's had too much to drink to get hard, anyway, even though the prospect of dragging York down onto the floor and running his hands all over his body is really appealing. More skin, more touch, and he's considering just going for it when York mutters something into his mouth.  
  
North drags himself away, reluctantly, lets York's lip slip out from between his teeth. "What?"  
  
"Lina," York repeats, and presses a kiss to North's collar, over the cotton of his shirt.  
  
North stands up immediately, realizes when he goes to push York back into the chair that he's still holding the Cisco. It's mostly empty, and that's mostly York's fault. Even with the lights on, York could probably mistake him for a giraffe. He should feel insulted, but instead he's just a little sad for York, who might well be as lonely as North is, even though nearly everyone showers him with attention. The one person York _wants_ attention from won't give him the time of day, and everyone on crew knows it.  
  
"Okay. Bed time. Come on," North says, and tugs him upright by the strings of his hoodie. As appealing as the thought of the Counselor discovering a lockpick drunk on bum wine napping in one of his armchairs and listening to Bach _is_ , he can't very well leave York here to sleep it off. They both have CQC in the morning, and York doesn't need to give the Director any more reasons to throw him out an airlock. North makes sure to hit the stereo controls again as they pass by the door.  
  
They stagger down the hallway, making little progress. York keeps bumping into him, pawing at the bottle, and North finally just hands it over so that he can get one arm under York's and haul him in the direction of the bunks. He's pretty sure they pass Wyoming at one point, but the man doesn't say anything, so hopefully it was just someone else with a magnificent black mustache who _won't_ spread this around the MOI gossip mill. North doubts it. He's never that lucky.  
  
York and Wash's room is unlocked, and North doesn't bother to check if Wash is up, just heaves York through the doorway and pushes him in the general direction of the rightside bed. York makes a noise somewhere between a grumble and a whine as he falls back onto the mattress, grabbing North's shirt and tugging him off balance. North catches himself on his hands, and finds himself looking down at York in the faint glow of the datapad that's resting on his bedside table. He looks- sad, vulnerable in a way York doesn't ever look when he's sober, at least not when North's around. Seeing that expression on his face feels more intimate than the kiss, and for a moment North's a little repelled, a little embarrassed, like he's intruding. He doesn't really _know_ York- they're coworkers. Maybe friends, if he's feeling optimistic, but certainly not close the way that York's expression implies.  
  
"M' sorry," York slurs, gazing blearily up at him "'bout Mitchel."  
  
Ow. North hadn't been expecting that. There had been a good hour or so there where it didn't even occur to him, what it must have been like, to run out of air in a room that was full of it.  
"Don't like it," York continues, and his brows furrow, like he's trying hard to remember something, or to put it into words "doesn't feel right. Like we're- disposable."  
  
"Go to sleep," North says, prying the (now empty) bottle out of York's fingers and setting it on the bedside table. He has to get back to his bunk and drink a lot of water. Tomorrow morning is already much too close. He's going to get his ass kicked on the training floor, he can feel it. Maybe FILSS will have mercy on both of them and pair him with York.  
  
"Be careful," York says, and North frowns, bothered by how lucid he looks, suddenly, but still so sad. York's tired, and drunk, though. His nonsense filter shut off a while ago.  
  
"Sleep," North repeats, and because he can't quite stop himself, he brushes a kiss to York's temple. He's sweating, a little, and smells like cheap strawberry flavoring and grain spirits. Still warm, though- just not for North.  
  
"Yeah," York mumbles, and rolls over to bury his face in a pillow.  
  
When North falls into his own bed, he doesn't dream.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, #5: "hey, you know..." is a direct sequel to this one.


	5. "hey, you know..."- north/york

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #5: "hey, you know….". North/York. Direct sequel to #4. PG-13 for gross medical stuff. Or not gross, if that's your kink? Whatever, I don't judge.

The first time York kisses him, they're both drunk. Well, North's _drinking_ , anyway, and York's buzzing on some really, really nice painkillers courtesy of the healing unit.

  
York had been disappointed to learn he got the healing unit; not only was it lacking in serious badass factor, it was really only useful when York was getting his ass kicked, which made his new tactical role really unpleasant. Is that building we have to get into likely to blow up? You're up, York! Need to clear a path for the squad through a minefield? York's on point. Is shit on fire? This sounds like a job for York! He loves Carolina with all his crooked little heart, and there's days when he swears at least some of that sentiment is mutual, but she's ruthlessly practical and as far as she's concerned, the healing unit makes York the Team Meatshield.  

  
Today is the first time he's gotten a full dose of the drugs, though, and while he still thinks the Project should have given the unit to Maine, who would have been _unstoppable_ and has a suspiciously friendly relationship with pain anyway, he's starting to see the appeal. They pried him out of the suit hours ago and he's still riding the high. York's pretty sure there's something other than opiods in this particular cocktail, because he used to do benzos in college and the dreamy, relaxed cloud of 'everything is gonna be ooookay' that's settled over him is _very_ familiar.

  
"Everything's gonna be ooookay," he tells the medbay at large, and laughs, staring down at the clean white bandages covering his legs.

  
"You have electrical burns on eighteen percent of your body," Wash says from the bed on York's left, and takes  a long pull on his beer "Third-degree burns, York." Wash has a bandage, too, a big rectangular one on top of his left thigh.

  
"No, he's right," North rearranges himself in the chair between their beds, stretching his legs out. He has similar gauze pads on both thighs. "It'll be fine. Very little deep tissue damage, considering."

  
"B'sides," York slurs, raising one hand to point vaguely at the both of them "I have such great friends," he pauses for a second, trying to make the sentence work, and then giving up "you gave me skin. Pretty, pretty skin."

  
"Ugh," Wash shudders, and and drops the empty bottle on the floor, reaching for another one. North hands him the six-pack. "That's so creepy sounding."

  
"Gonna make me a Wash suit," York nods back into his pillow "it rubs the lotion on it's skin, or-"

  
North laughs, low and rich. "Stop," he says, and pokes York gently on the shoulder, where there's no risk of hurting him. "Don't make me regret allowing R-rated films on movie night."

  
"Hey now," York protests "Connie chose that one. That one's... s'not on me."

  
Then the medbay door slides open and he says, "Speak'f the devil".

  
Connie stares at the three of them, a wry twist to her mouth. "I've come to retrieve Wash," she announces.

  
"Oh, thank god," Wash scrambles off the bed, abandoning his half-finished beer to North's tender mercies "Let's get out of here before they carve off any more of me."

  
"I'm a quilt," York informs Connie, very seriously, and she nods at him.

  
"He's high," North explains.

  
"As a kite," York agrees, then pauses "a quilt kite."

  
"We're leaving now," Wash shouts, and limps off down the the hall, Connie half-dragging him by the elbow.  
York sinks back into his pillows and hums, quiltily. Yeah, definitely part benzos. Starting to wear off, though, if his annoyance and the vague itching below his knees is any indication.

  
"What kinda asshole" he asks the ceiling "remotely overloads a transformer to-- to _arc flash_ a guy? 'S like the definition of dick move." Sounds like something he'd do, actually. He's kind of mad he didn't think of it first.

  
North hums. "Someone who's actually watched their required workplace safety videos?"

  
"Knowledge is power," York agrees, and then winces. The pain in his legs has been slowly creeping back up on him, but the bitching thing about burns is that without drugs they don't fluctuate in pain level, it's just _oh god that fucking hurts_ all the time.

  
"You need more morphine?"

  
"Nah," he says, automatically, then "wait. Opiates."

  
"Yes or no?"

  
"Definitely yes. Si, ja, whatever it is."

  
"Да," North smiles at him, scoots the chair over to the side of York's bed, and reaches over him to dial up the morphine drip a notch.

  
"When are you gonna teach me your snowy commie language, anyhow?" York teases him.

  
"I'm not. Then South and I couldn't talk about you behind your back," North pauses "Kамрад."

  
York laughs. "See, I can tell what that means."

  
"It should be товарищ, really," North says "but I figured that would only confuse you."

  
"I'm high," York agrees, and lifts up his left arm to make sure his hands aren't doing anything weird.

  
"And monolingual." North pushes his arm back down. "Stay still, you'll mess up your IVs, and if you get dehydrated--"

  
"I know, I know," York tries in vain to wave him off, but North's stronger than him even when York is sober, and he doesn't really want North to go. North gave him skin grafts, which was really very sweet, and his voice gets all low and rumbly when he talks in Russian, which is nice, and he's just nice and sweet all over, really. He's not York's best friend (because North is biologically programmed to already have a permanent best friend and despite York's many, many attempts to extract himself from the York and Wash Mutual Admiration Society his BFF slot is taken, too), but they're friends, and North has really nice shoulders and kind blue eyes and his breath smells like IPA, and--

  
"Mmmmmorphine," York says, because that's really the only explanation for the strange gay walkabout his mind is currently taking.

  
North quirks a brow at him and tries to extract his hand, but York's got him around the wrist, and for some reason that makes North _smile_ , a real 'I'm happy' smile. North's got a whole range of smiles he uses on York, from 'I'm politely tolerating you' to 'I'm puzzled by this but also kind of amused by your antics', but it's rare to see the 'I'm happy' smile, because it means York's done something _right_ , and let's be honest, here, York's kind of a fuck-up when it comes to other people. It's his schtick. His _je ne sais quoi_. It's how he rolls.

  
And because god forbid York do something right for more than a minute at a time, he thinks _Wow, I really like you_ , and he sits back up, and he tugs on North's wrist, and when North looks up wearing his concerned-face, York kisses him.

  
"Mmph," North says, and pulls back a little "Now? Really? I thought-"

  
York tugs harder, and manages to get North's upper lip in his teeth, which makes North shut up-- for fear of losing it, probably, but York's a _good_ kisser, he's not going to bite anyone's lip off, and he sets about proving that to North as thoroughly as possible. North gives in, but not without gently prying York's fingers off his wrist and lowering York's upper body back onto the bed, which, fine. Totally fine. More than fine. York closes his eyes and sucks on North's tongue and revels in how absofuckinglutely fine everything is right now.

  
North runs a long-fingered hand through York's hair, cupping the back of his head and finally pulling away. His thumb rubs at York's ear and he's _smiling_ again.

  
"Hey, you know," York says, when he's got enough air in his body again to make words happen "I've never kissed a guy before."

  
North laughs, and it's quiet, but they're so close together York can feel his chest vibrating with it. "Now, I _know_ that's not true."

  
York frowns at him. "Hey now. I'll have you know I've led a life of exclusively heterosexual..." North is giving him a strange look "...things. Until this moment."

  
"You-" North lets go of York's head and sits back down in his chair, blinking dazedly "are you fucking with me?"

  
"Uh, _no_. What, do I look like the kind of guy who messes around with guys? Ladies here. You should be proud, man." He pauses, because North's happy smile has left the building and possibly this star system entirely. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. Or that you can tell, I mean. By looking. Fuck, ignore me, I'm an ass." As annoying as it is when Delta tries to make him shut up mid-sentence, York's kind of wishing he had the little guy with him right now. Delta, weirdly enough, is way better about knowing what's offensive to particular people on the team.

  
"Oh. You don't remember, do you?" North props one elbow on the bed and rests his forehead in his hand. His shoulders shake.

  
York panics. "Oh god. What. What did I do?"

  
But North's just laughing, quietly again. "This whole time, I thought you were avoiding me, that it was weird now, and you just _didn't remember._ "

  
"I-- what? I'm not avoiding you, what kind of bullshit is that?" York's a little affronted. He spends as much time with North as anyone, except maybe Wash, and he comes to _every_ movie night, except when it's Florida's turn to pick because he really _hates_ musicals, and--

  
"I guess it _was_ bullshit." North's hand comes back up to thread through York's hair, gently. "I guess-- I really like you, and I was so worried that I'd made it weird--"

  
"Made _what_ weird?" York presses him. The hand in his hair is warm and scratching at his scalp in a way that should be weird but actually makes York go all tingly. His eyes close again and he hears the chair creak as North leans over the bed.

  
"I'll tell you," North says, half an inch from York's mouth "if you promise not to forget all this in the morning."

  
"Medbay has cameras," York tilts his chin up to steal a quick kiss "I hit my head and forget my name?" and another "you just play it back for me. How's that?"

  
"Sounds like a plan," North agrees, and _smiles_.  
  



	6. the space between dream and reality- church/tex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt #6: the space between dream and reality. church/tex, pg-13, spoilers for s6.

When Church jacks into the Meta, Tex is there. She's pale blue translucence all over, like she's just as much of a ghost as he is, and she's holding a pair of kids in her lap, green and yellow. Her helmet is off, and she looks-- happy.

In the three point thirty-eight seconds it takes Sigma to realize that Church is there, she turns to look at him.

"Hey, Leonard," she says, "imagine s--"

The Meta roars, and Tex slides into Church slides into Tex slides into the twins into Trust into Deceit into Logic into Ambition into Rage--

* * *

  
The guest speaker is younger than Tex by a good few years, but he's almost cute, aside from that gross little pube beard. After years of nothing but fellow jarheads, the 'skinny nerd' look is appealing just by virtue of its novelty. Tex does like smarts, and Poindexter here has a few letters after his name, so someone somewhere thought he had at least minor neural activity.

Then he opens his mouth.

"Allison," he squints down at the paper he's holding, and Tex knows that pause, oh boy. She is so well-acquainted with that pause "Allison Nug... N-gen? Allison Engine?"

This is worse than usual. How did he even manage that?

"Seriously? It's Nguyen," she says, drawing it out nice and slow "Nguuuuyyyyen."

"Oh," he says, and looks up. He's blushing behind the glasses, but glaring at the same time, "Allison _Win_. Okay. Elise Norwood."

Christ. Good enough. Tex puts her boots up on the empty desk in front of her and goes back to sketching out schematics for the chassis modifications she wants to make on her bike when she gets home.

Poindexter is rambling on about his cutting edge research in AI wetware and possible military applications. Tex takes short notes in the margins; it's interesting, but the technology is so far behind his ideas that they won't be viable for five to seven years at least.

He is smart, though. Too bad about the pause.

* * *

  
"So, Win," he says, scurrying out of the room after her with his arms full of blinking tablets "that's an interesting name. What is it?"

Tex stops dead in her tracks, and Poindexter bounces off of her back. One of the tablets clatters to the floor.

"It's my _name_ , genius," she says, watching him scramble after the touchpad.

"No, I mean, where are you from?" Poindexter juggles the little black pad back up into his pile of them.

"San Antonio," Tex says, voice as dry as she can make it "just stop, okay? You're embarrassing yourself."

"Shit," says Poindexter, and the blush/glare combo is back "can I just ask you out for a coffee? Is that a thing we can do?"

"Depends," Tex crosses her arms over her chest "what's in it for me?"

"Uh, coffee? Possibly a pastry?"

"And in return, I endure your company?"

"Yeah. That's the deal." All of this guy's facial expressions seem to have some variety of 'angry' mixed into them, even the happy ones. He reminds Tex of her cat: perpetually cranky but also desperate for her attention. If she scratched Poindexter behind the ears, she thinks, he might do the angry-purr, too.

"For as long as it takes to eat a pastry." Tex cracks her neck, sizes him up one more time: Smart. Cute. Offering to buy her baked goods. "Okay."

"Shit, really? Oh, I'm Church, by the way."

"The fuck kind of name is that?" Tex asks, and can't hold back a smile when he sputters and turns red "Where are you from, anyway, the fuckin' Vatican?"

* * *

  
Tex jams a two-cred coin into the mess comm unit and waves Fernandez off towards their usual table with a 'thanks' hand-sign. Fernandez replies with 'fuck' and 'ya'll', because apparently pronouns are hard.

Leonard's face fuzzes into view on the tiny little corner display. He looks like shit.

"You look like shit," Tex says, tucking the phone under her chin and rooting around in her pockets for more cash "make it quick, it's omelet bar and I'm on KP. I have mushrooms that need my attention."

"I just wanted to say hi," Leonard says, looking peevish "but, you know, sorry, guess I forgot you were such a colossal bitch."

"You did not," Tex drops another coin in preemptively anyway "come on, you called. Is science happening? Is that why you haven't shaved in a week? Wow me, Poindexter."

"Science happened," Leonard confirms, and sips what can only be industrial-strength coffee out of a UNSC Civilian Liaison mug "I'm not sure I want to talk on an open line, though."

"Keeping secrets?" Tex leans against the comm unit and rubs a pair of coins together, watching the alloy spark "I find that attractive."

"Spare me," Leonard says, but if she squints Tex can see him blushing in the crappy light of his desk lamp "it's, well. You know that project I told you about?"

"Yeah, your weird little pipe dream. Don't tell me R&D actually kicked money your way for that Asimov shit."

"Wow, it's great to have a girlfriend who's so fucking loving and supportive," Leonard gripes "I am the envy of every sad single nerd in here."

"Mushrooms, Church," Tex reminds him.

"Right. So, the vast majority of the problems with implantation are because of the brain's complexity. You can't just go shoving a whole second consciousness in there. We're not equipped. Smart AIs are copies of entire people: whole, adult, developed personalities. It's like-- you can boot a secondary operating system on a separate partition if you want, but you can't run both at the same time and expect them to get along. It's not a problem with the brain's processing capacity, that's a whole other issue, we're really pretty useless meatsacks when it comes down to it, but both the subject and the AI are highly complex psychological systems, similar in the grand scheme but not close enough to integrate without serious conflicts that throw the whole body out of whack. One mismatched data point in an area like neurotransmitter production or even learning style and bye-bye homeostasis, is all I'm saying."

"I feel like I'm becoming less cool just by listening to this," Tex declares, and takes a moment to admire the look Leonard gets when he's interrupted, like he's trying to picture where he put his keys or if he remembered to put on boxers that morning. He's honestly the dumbest genius she's ever met, and it's stupidly endearing.

"You can tell me about beer or motorcycles later or something, I promise, just-- okay. So I was thinking, what if we could make the smart AIs-- not _dumber_ , not even simpler-- but what if we could make their _systems_ smaller, so there's less  potential points of conflict, and listen, you'll love this, there's ways that that the human brain _already does that_ , cordons off specific parts of the consciousness that contain conflicting information and isolates them so that they can't cause system breakdown, it's called dissociation, everyone does it, it's how we deal with cognitive dissonance, but there's more severe forms of it, whole personality segments and memory-- memory _subroutines_ , really, I can't think of a better way to describe them--"

Leonard rattles on about modeling AI integration software on the human brain's own processes in increasingly excited tones, and Tex lets him, until their time starts to run out.

"Hey, Einstein," she cuts him off in the middle of a word, a really long one, with lots of hyphens in it "I gotta feed the starving masses, okay? Speaking of which, I don't care if _you_ work all night without coming up for air, but you had better be treating Winston like the king he is."

"I am a fucking slave to your cat, you know that," he says, glaring, and then the wrinkle between his eyebrows smooths out, and his voice hits that sad, dopey register she stubbornly refuses to find cute. "I miss you. Be careful."

"I miss you too," she admits, and hangs up on him.

* * *

  
"I'm coming home, dickwad," she says, as soon as Leonard picks up; she knows his sleepy cursing as well as her own at this point, even though it's been weeks since he drove up to meet her at the duty station.

"Shit, what--" a rustle, and a click "Win? What's going on?" He only ever calls her that when he's worried, or post-coital. The thought does not inspire sympathy in Tex at the moment, as she stares down again at the stick in her hand, the third one she's done, just to make sure, because _fuck_.

"What's going on," she grinds out "is that I'm _supposed_ to deploy to Reach in six months, with my fucking elite drop squad--"

"I know, okay, I know-"

"But _someone_ either gets his jollies from poking holes in condoms or has the world's most determined little alien swimmers--"

"Fuck, are you serious?"

"Yes, _Leonard_ ," Tex hisses, mindful of Fernandez just outside the bathroom door but it's not like it matters at this point, does it, "I am serious, and I am fucked. Fuck you."

"Holy shit." More rustling. Tex pictures him sitting up in bed with his hand over his eyes, like he always does when reality is just too much for him to bear "well, just. You know. They pay for that, right? I mean, it happens. Or I can cover it."

Tex leans her head back against the cold lid of the toilet seat and closes her eyes, letting the swell of shocked anger pass over her and drain away. Leonard's just being practical.

"Let me tell you what is going to happen," she says, very calmly, considering "I am going to go down to medical and have them pinch me to make sure that this is not a horrible dream. And then they are going to reschedule my deployment for next year. And in five months or so, I am going to come home on leave, and you are going to bring me all the grilled cheese and ice cream I want, and not bitch about it, because this is _your_ fault--"

"Hey," he protests "I seem to recall you participating. Gleefully."

" _Because this is your fault_ ," Tex repeats loudly, and she can't help it, she's starting to smile "And I'm going to have this kid, _our_ kid, and then I'm going to ship out, and finish my deployment, and--"

"Just, just shut up for a second, okay?"

"No, _you_ shut up, cockmunch," and if Tex presses her hand to her own belly in that dark bathroom and imagines, no one ever has to know "and we're going to have the world's smartest, most bad-ass kid in the-"

"Allison, will you _please_ shut up long enough for me to-"

"-known universe, and-"

" _Tex_. Fucking _marry_ me, alright?" he shouts, and Tex shuts up "because I meant to ask, last month, but you were being such a _bitch_ \--" she bursts into laughter, a little hysterically "and frankly you scare me, sometimes, and we wound up doing the whole thing with the, you know--" Tex can see him making the vague, embarrassed hand-wave that's Church-speak for 'kinky femdom that I refuse to admit to liking out loud' "and it just didn't seem like the right time to ask--"

"You didn't ask me to marry you," she drawls, and relaxes down onto the tile, grinning at the ceiling "because you were too busy crawling around the hotel room in lingerie?" And fellating her strap-on, but Tex is saving the reminder of that one for a special occasion, like when he's on the phone with his mother.

"Because you are _terrifying_ ," he says, with the kind of vehemence he usually reserves for ranting about how someone is _wrong_ about science on the internet "and I _love_ that, really, I do, and you're pregnant, holy fuck. I think I need to go lie down, but I'm already lying down, so--"

Tex laughs, and laughs, and by the time Fernandez bangs on the door to see if she's alright, Leonard is laughing, too.

* * *

  
When the convoy from base stops at the recharge station, Tex dyes her hair in the bathroom. It's grimy and small, and she rips through a whole roll of brown paper towels to get dry, but it's worth it when she steps in front of the mirror and recognizes her civilian self again. Blonde, even if it's not as long as she'd like. She pulls it up into a bun out of habit, and tucks her cap back on. Her tags are heavy in her pocket, and her neck feels bare.

"Come _on_ , Nguyen," Lehmann shouts from the bed of the truck "some of us got kids to get home to."

Caty is six and skinny and so much taller now and hers. Tex kneels down in the doorway, holding her arms out, but Caty ducks behind Leonard's legs and shakes her head. Her pigtails whirl like chopper blades.

"It's your Mom, kiddo," Leonard says, coaxing her forward by the shoulders "her hair's just different."

Oh. Tex pulls off her fatigue cap and yanks the pins out of her bun. Hair falls over her face, and Caty smiles, showing the gaps in her teeth. She missed teeth falling out. She missed birthdays, and gymnastics medals, and first grade.

Tex hefts her up easily. Caty digs her face into Tex's shirt and clings and giggles.  

* * *

  
"Leonard, come on," Tex says, on the verge of regretting getting him that video camera. He was supposed to use it to record important Caty-related material. She's sick of missing dance recitals. "You're going to make me late."

Church just tightens his hold on her wrist. He's been so clingy lately; worse than Caty, and she's only eight. Sometimes Tex wakes up in the middle of the night to find him curled around her like an octopus, face scrunched up like he's dreaming about something annoying, or just about to sneeze. Other times he's awake, holding a tablet above her head and skimming through articles on the war, too fast to really be reading them. 'I have a bad feeling,' he keeps saying, whenever the topic comes up. 'That's very scientific, Leonard,' is her usual reply, and that always gets her an irritated little half-pout that still looks cute on him.

"Don't make me hurt you," Tex tells him, and he kisses her open palm, and then he lets her go.

* * *

  
Tex gets a tattoo in a dive in Manassas not far from the spaceport.

"It's good protection, the Turul," Gabor tells her, as the needle whirs. There's four of them who wound up at the tattoo parlor, of the nine who went drinking: Tex, Gabor, Fernandez, and Ramon. They're all getting the same tat, a big ugly Hungarian bird that they named one of the moons after.

"We need a new squad name," Ramon says "like, 'The Screaming Eagles', or something."

"'Talons First'," Fernandez suggests, scratching at her bandaged shoulder "'Hellhawks'."

"Nah," Tex says "we're ODST. That's already as badass as it gets."

Tex is thinking about the bird on her shoulder when she seals into her vacuum suit orbiting Hat Yai. If she'd known, she would have thought about Caty and Leonard. But the tattoo itches, and her hair's grown out black again from her high-and-tight and her family is light-years away. The bay glows red. Showtime.

Atmosphere roars behind the familiar screech of titanium and a hole in the world opens up under the troop bay, regulation five by five meters square. Fernandez is whispering the Lord's Prayer on low register along her comm line, the cadence so familiar Tex doesn't bother trying to make out the words anymore. On her right, Ramon flashes a peace sign, and tips forward into nothingness.

Tex counts to fifteen.

"Feet first into hell, bitches," she says, and drops.

* * *

 

When Church jacks into the Meta, Tex is there.

"Hey, Leonard," she says, and three point thirty-eight seconds expands, stretching out like a wire slinky, and he can see _everything_ in that instant before there's a roar, and it all contracts, snaps back, twists and scrambles--  


 


	7. superstar- carolina/479er

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #7: Superstar. Carolina/479er. PG. Modern AU. Pure fluff, sorry. This is bad and I'm posting it anyway get off my back.

Superstar lives [HERE ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4856138)now.


	8. Horse Trouble- Carolina/479er

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: Speed, Carolina/Niner. Superstar Modern AU.

Horse Trouble lives [HERE ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4856168)now. Sorry for the inconvenience.


	9. Formal Dress- South/CT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie/South, NC-17. In which South borrows a suit, Vanessa Kimball speaks truth to power, and Connie gets laid.
> 
> This is Superstar Modern AU, wherein Connie leaks incriminating NSA documents to the Boston Phoenix.

Formal Dress lives [HERE ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4856183)now. Sorry for the inconvenience.


	10. A Conversation- Gen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Starlight Prompt: "It surprised me how much creamer Death put in his coffee". York.  
> Implied canon character death.

It surprised York how much creamer Death put in his coffee. He watched with horrified fascination as the bony hand shook in yet more non-dairy granules, and stirred the mug with an ornate silver spoon. It had a bulb on the end, with some kind of gem or marble inset– pure robin’s egg blue. It looked out of place in the little room, all dark wood and heavy drapes.

“Can’t you just magic up some real milk?” York wondered, sipping at his own mug of black coffee. Sugar had been provided in an elaborately wrought silver dish; it was, like the spoon, nearly black with tarnish. “This is a dream, right?”

“I could do that,” Death agreed, and set the spoon down on the table with a delicate clink. Globs of undissolved creamer stuck to the handle. “But I find the human practice of consuming animal excretions revolting. Not to mention puzzling in the case of goats and cows. Perhaps if it were human milk, which is intended for human consumption.”

“Are you–” York squinted at him, but it was useless– nothing under that cowl except darkness, infinite cold space trapping light like a collapsed star “are you some kind of _militant vegan_?”

“I do not understand what that means,” Death said, and tipped the mug up to where his (her?) mouth would be. York had to close his eyes. The ceramic went inside, but didn’t, and none of this was possible, anyway. A dream– he recognized the room from Poe’s _Masque of the Red Death_ , down to the black grandfather clock ticking off to his left. He’d read that in what, fifth grade?

“Right,” York said, checking the time again. He had fifteen minutes, at least, before it struck twelve. He was hoping that would wake him up; wasn’t looking forward to dying of the bubonic plague, or whatever the plague was a metaphor for. “Just for the record, if we’re talking disease allegory, I really prefer Camus–”

“I am hardly responsible,” Death cut him off “for the vagaries of your subconscious.”

“Fair enough,” York agreed, and took another sip of coffee. The liquid level never went down. At least his subconscious was on the ball when it came to bottomless caffeine. “So. You gonna tell me why we’re here?”

Death sighed, and a plume of red smoke wafted out from under the cowl, dissipating slowly. “That’s _always_ the question. Every time I get one of you people, it’s ‘you ever wonder’, and 'life’s great mysteries’, and 'please validate the decades I spent down there pursuing arbitrary markers of success and scratching my genitalia–”

“No man,” York explained “I meant here. Like now, specifically.”

“Oh,” Death said, with what sounded like genuine surprise. “You’re dead. Well, dying. But definitely entering the 'deceased’ category.” He shrugged; the robe rose sharply around the shoulders, and then settled back down in a different place then where it had started. York was pretty sure there wasn’t anything under there, either, just more space. “Didn’t the sickle tip you off?”

“Yeah,” York sighed, and sunk back into his chair. Better to enjoy the coffee while he still could, apparently. The clock ticked ominously. “I figured. Just, ya know. Making sure.”

“Oh yes,” Death picked up the spoon again, and to York’s amazement, dumped more creamer into the mug “definitely shuffling off this mortal coil. Buying the farm. Cashing in your chips.”

“I _get_ it.”

“Kicking the bucket.”

“Enough, already. Stop.”

“Popping your clogs– that’s a favorite, I have to say. Very English.”

“Ugh,” York let his head fall back. There was no ceiling, just some cloudy mass of more darkness, a whirling vortex like looking down into a deep hole and getting vertigo. “ _Wyoming_.”

“Reginald, yes.” Death tutted; tiny puffs of crimson smoke. “He’s an odd one. Almost as crafty as that Church character. But I’ll get him eventually, time unit or no.”

“Thanks,” York mumbled, up into the seething abyss “that’s a real comfort.”

“And Allison,” Death mused, and the spoon rattled in the mug as he stirred. “She’d be up for another round as well, if it weren’t for you.”

York closed his eyes. The 'sky’ was making him dizzy, and his chest hurt for some stupid reason. “Can I ask–”

“I have not yet met with Agent Carolina.”

Oh. “I. Oh. That’s good.” More than good. It unknotted something in him that had been pulled taut for far too long. “I guess. I guess that’s it, then?”

“More or less.”

York cracked an eye open, leaned his head to the side on the back of the chair. The clock was still ticking. Two minutes. “Can I ask a favor?”

“You can always _ask_.”

“Can you– when you do see her,” he swallowed. “Can you tell her I’m sorry? That I understand why she did what she did.”

No reply, just the clock. Tick, tick, tick. York set the mug on the table and clenched his hands around the arms of the chair. This was– probably going to hurt. “Uh. Guy?”

Death stared at him across the table, cowl shifting eerily around a head that wasn’t there. 

“Hello?”

Tick. Tick.

“I will consider it,” Death said, and then it was midnight.


	11. Plus One- North/South/York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dakotas/York request for RVB Happy Hour. M for innuendo and South being South.

“Aw, look” South says, and plops down on the foot of the bed, legs folded butterfly-style “You got me a birthday present. Cause it’s my birthday.”  
  
“No. It’s _my_ birthday,” North reminds her, hanging up both of their coats behind the door and leaning back against it with his arms crossed “and since someone _never_ gets me a birthday present, I decided to treat myself.”  
  
"Oh.” South yanks her boots off without undoing the laces all the way, mostly because she knows it drives North nuts. Then she chucks them one by one into the open closet, where they land with heavy thumping noises, the left one rolling back out from off a pile of clean, unsorted laundry. “This explains why the present is a dick.”  
  
“Mppffhh,” York says, and glares at her. His face is very red over the tie.  
  
South narrows her eyes “What the fuck, is that my paisley? He’s fucking drooling on it.”  
  
“Yes,” North says, with imperturbable calm, stalking over shoeless “and it’s hideous. I was very happy to find a use for it.”   
  
“I wear that to job interviews,” South shouts, and scrambles up the bed, causing York’s good eye to bulge with alarm. North catches her around the waist, though, tugging her back.  
  
“Which explains why this current stint of unemployment has been so persistent. Think about it, do you _really_ want him running his mouth?”  
  
"It’s silk,” South pouts, but leans back into him when North sits sideways on the bed, scooting her butt back into his lap. He rubs her thigh consolingly.   
  
“I’ll get you another one. Just. Not purple, okay?”  
  
“Aubergine,” South mumbles, but distractedly. She stretches one leg out to poke at York’s groin with her socked foot. His hips twitch. “These aren’t yours. They’re too small.” The ‘these’ in question are a pair of black silk panties with lace trim and a pink bow on the waistband. York’s practically spilling out of them. South wriggles her toes and he huffs out a frantic breath.  
  
“Mmm,” North hums into her neck, folding arms over her chest. The big sap. “They’re his. He brought a whole bag of goodies. Didn’t you, York?”  
  
York can’t grin, but he does manage a cheeky wink in North’s direction before South presses in again and he squeezes both eyes shut, entire body shuddering.   
  
“Whose birthday is this, anyway?” South grumps “We’ve been played, bro.”  
  
North drops a kiss on her shoulder. “I’ll go get your heels.”


	12. Salad Bar- Gen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon requested South and Maine for RVB Happy Hour. PG.

South’s standing in front of the boiled sweet potatoes, and the buffet line hasn’t budged for twenty-seven seconds. South did not work her way up to an elite special ops squad so she could wait in line at the mess like the rest of the plebs.

“Oh my _god_ ,” she yells up at the ceiling, shaking her tray on the counter. Drops of cola spatter onto her meatloaf. “Can we _move_ , please?”

"But,” Wash says, and of course it’s Wash holding everyone up, who else could it be “there’s no lettuce? I wanted lettuce. And where are the tomatoes?”

“We all wanted lettuce,” Connie says, and pats him on the shoulder as South leans back far enough to glare at the both of them past North’s enormous shoulders “but it’s Tuesday.”

“What does that even _mean_?” Wash complains, but South can see his elbow moving, ladling _something_ onto his plate.

"Hurry up,” she chants, and ignores North frowning at her “hurry up hurry up my shitbrick is getting cold.”

“How appetizing,” North deadpans, spooning shredded carrots and sliced cucumbers into a bowl, which is how salad happens for _plebs_ who get to the mess hall late on Tuesdays.

“It is even less appetizing when it’s a _cold_ shitbrick,” South shouts, directly at Wash. He scurries. Good. South fills her own bowl half-way to the top with chopped vegetables, vinegar dressing, and cheese, grabs a pair of salad tongs, and whirls away from the buffet bar towards the mountainous shoulders that are reserving her seat.

South sets her tray down with a clatter and slides onto the bench across from Maine. He doesn’t even look up.

"I heard,” she says, reaching over the table with the salad tongs to pluck lettuce out of the massive serving bin he’s appropriated “that you put York in the hospital.”

Maine crunches, moving his fork far enough to the side that South can get at the spinach layered on the bottom of the tray. She drops it back into her own bowl, stirring vigorously to distribute the cheese and dressing.

“As someone who frequently wants to put York in the hospital,” she continues, dissecting the shitbrick into perfect cubes with one hand and forking salad into her mouth with the other “I wanna congatyulate—” she swallows “commend you. A plus work from my Maine man.”

Maine grunts, and passes her the smaller tub from the buffet line, the one full of cherry tomatoes. South accepts it gratefully and tips several into her bowl. “Oh, don’t tell me you feel bad about it. He’s a fuckstick.”

Maine takes the tomatoes back and dumps the remainder of the bin into his salad trough. South didn’t know it was possible for someone to look sad while eating salad, especially when Senior Sargent Fuckstick, Vice President of Dickmilk Company, McAssface Number Two, is in the infirmary. All that _and_ a salad. Maine should be jumping for joy.

“Maine. Brother.” South slams her elbows on the table and looks him right in the eye, pointing with her fork “Cheer the fuck up, I can’t eat when you’re all mopey. Kills the appetite.”

Maine munches, morosely. Distraction time.

“Oh, _all right_ ,” South grumbles, fishing around in her cargo pockets for the extra pudding cup she filched. “I was gonna save this for later, but you know what? You need it more than me.” She slides it across the table.

Maine eyes the pudding cup with suspicion.

"Oh, come on,” South protests “It’s clean. I’m _nice_. I do _nice things_ for people.”

Maine still hasn’t touched the pudding cup. His eyebrows go up.

"It’s hermetically fucking sealed,” South hisses, and throws her plastic spoon at him. It bounces off of his chest and lands in the salad.

“It’s so nice to see you kids getting along,” Connie says, and sits down next to South, placing her hot tea carefully out of range of wandering elbows. “Any chance I can get some of that lettuce, Maine?” She’s got her ‘sweet young thing’ smile on, like she’s expecting it to work. _How_ many Tuesdays has Connie spent here? She should know better.

Maine stops spooning pudding into his mouth long enough to shake his head. “No.”

Connie frowns. “How do you do it?” she asks, incredulous. “You’re _terrible_.”

South just grins. “Hey Maine, spare a tomato? Wash held the line up.”

Maine does her one better and just flicks the tomato across the room at him. Wash’s yelp of confused dismay tells South that his aim, as always, is dead on.

“I’m the fuckin’ animal whisperer,” South says, and drains the last of her cola.


	13. Finding Nemo- Carolina/York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Finding Nemo" prompt for RVB Happy Hour. PG-13 I guess.

“So let me get this straight,” Connie says, and Carolina can hear her fumbling with her keys over the line, South’s low, muffled laughter. “You’re _actually watching_ Finding Nemo.”

 

"Apparently?!” Carolina drags her hand through her ponytail again, stares at her own face in Douchebag Hair’s surprisingly not-grimy bathroom mirror. “This is not how I was planning for my evening to go. Do I _leave_? Am I disqualified if I leave?”

"Oh, Lina,” and Connie’s very clearly trying not to laugh, it’s just that she’s failing. “Sweetheart. I got _eight_ numbers tonight, you’ve already lost.”

"We’re going to have the most excellent foursome,” South shouts from the background, and Carolina recognizes that Hawaiian girl (Chai? Kei?) by her enthusiastic whooping. “You could have had it all, Red. You could have had _all this_.”

Thumping on the door. “Hey, Lina,” Douchebag Hair says, sounding concerned “are you alright? I paused it, cause you can’t miss this part. It’s adorable.”

"I’m fine,” Carolina shouts back, slapping her hand over the mouthpiece. It’s too late. South’s cackling reaches a fever pitch. “Just give me a minute.” She turns back to her phone “I’m not giving up. Did you see his abs? This is happening if I have to jump him.”

"Lina,” Connie chokes out, finally devolving into giggles “ _Honey_.”

"I am going to have such good sex with him,” Carolina insists, and the despair and the fuzziness brought on by that last tequila are both slipping away, replaced by bright determination “It is going to be five times— SIX TIMES as good as whatever you’re doing. Orders of magnitude better, Connie. I am not leaving this apartment—”

There’s a rustling sound as the phone changes hands again.

“Better luck next time, Carolina,” Tex says, and Carolina can hear her smirking.

“You’ll pay for this,” she hisses, glancing around the bathroom like she’s going to find something there with which to exact her revenge. “Oh god. There’s _so much hair gel_.”


	14. Floor Fourteen- York/North

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a ridiculous and beautiful tumblr prompt. Modern AU. PG-13.

York presses the elevator call button at 0708, late as usual; it’s a perfectly usual day, except that Wash is either out sick or actually on time himself for once and thus hasn’t accompanied York from the shuttle. York waits a good thirty seconds for the elevator to come down to the first floor, but it doesn’t look like the third member of his morning elevator ride trio– the hot giant Slavic guy– is going to show. He’s halfway into the car when he hears footsteps pounding down the hall. Not work boots, so not Wash. York holds the door open with only a _slight_ grin as the man rounds the corner. Normally it’s this guy holding the door for _York_.

The man strides into the car next to him, breathing a little hard. His face is pinked up around the ears, and York tries not to stare at the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. Or how his sleeves are rolled up to the elbows and how his forearms are bulging a little bit under the giant pile of Cyrillic books and papers that he’s holding. Or how his tie is missing and his shirt is open at the collar one button more than usual, like he dressed in a hurry, because usually this guy is excessively put together down to the Windsor knot when he holds the door open in the mornings, talking in animated Russian into his phone. York took one look at him and decided it was Aeronautics Division with the rest of the Ukrainians, and sure enough, he got off at floor 14 every morning.

Which was why he hadn’t kept his mouth shut on day one. York was so used to none of the _English_ speakers understanding him when he talked to Wash in his native language that it hadn’t even occurred to him that he had to worry about Sergei here. So he’d spent the last few months standing next to Wash in the elevator (and depending on the day, next to Wash’s giant rolling trash can or portable steam cleaner or side-wringing mop bucket) waxing eloquent in their shared tongue about not only the usual subjects (how late York was, how much the Yankees sucked, what new and terrible edict Wash’s landlord had decided to impose on his highrise), but also how insanely hot Mr. Aerospace was. York was particularly fond of his shoulders and arms. And chest. And well, everything really. (“I really want a hug from him,” York had confessed one morning, as Wash snorted into his face-mask “no, really. I mean other things, sure, but I bet he gives great hugs.”)

But this morning Wash isn’t there. It’s just York and a very large, very attractive, slightly sweaty aeronautics engineer, standing awkwardly in an open elevator.

“Catorze, por favor,” Tall Blond and Handsome says, with only the slightest accent.

York presses fourteen automatically, and then freezes, his thumb still depressing the button. Oh, God.

“I don’t think the doors are going to close unless you let go,” the man says, in perfectly decent Portuguese. He sounds amused.

“I’m going to kill him,” York breathes, feeling heat washing down from his forehead to his neck. Wow. This is– this is really, really humiliating. It’s an unusual experience for York. Very unpleasant.

“Who, Wash?” A big hand claps him on the shoulder, and then trails down York’s arm to pull his hand away from the panel. “Please don’t. He wanted to tell you, but I told him you’d probably be embarrassed.”

“I’m embarrassed _now_ ,” York points out, unnecessarily. He has to be bright red. Kill Wash. _Kill_ him. He can run, right now, and find the little bastard, and– the doors close. He’s trapped.

“There’s no need.” The man smiles, and York’s stomach does a nervous little flip. Or maybe that’s just the elevator moving. “I’m North Lysenko, by the way. I work in R&D.”

“York,” York says. “Just York. I do, uh. Upstairs stuff. Security.” That’s one way of putting it; it’s the answer he gives at parties, too. Security, as if he provides it, and in a sense he does. Blackmail is by definition security for _someone_.

“I figured,” North says, with the same warm, mild smile that got York into this mess in the first place. “Do you folks upstairs eat in the main cafeteria?”

Not really; the MOI has its own mess on the 20th floor; it would be inconvenient to have people going in and out over the course of the day, what with all the security checks York has to go through just to get to his desk. But there’s no _rule_ against it. “Uh. We can.”

“Good,” North says, and fishes a card out of his pocket. York watches his hands, a little helplessly. They’re very nice hands. Big. Everything about the guy is big, apparently, and it’s even more obvious without Wash and a housekeeper’s cart in between them. It makes his heart pound high up in his throat. “Would you like to get lunch, then? I break at one.”

York breaks at noon, technically. But what the hell, it’s not like Director Church will fire him. He’s been coming in late every day for the last two years and as far as he can tell the only consequence is that Pryce looks a little more constipated each and every time he signs York in. Which Church, incidentally, seems to find hilarious. “I’d like that, yeah.”

North shifts his giant pile of books onto one hip and tugs a little pen out from his shirt pocket, clicking it open on his chin. He scribbles something on the card, then clicks the pen shut and drops it back into his shirt. “Here. Text me your table, if you like. No pressure.”

York takes the card as it’s offered, makes sure to brush North’s hand with his own. Oh, he likes. He’s looking up at blue, blue eyes, lashes so blond they vanish, and North’s staring right back. Oh, geez. He’s got half a mind to just say ‘screw waiting’, hit the emergency stop button, and get down on his knees right here. See if he can get the guy a little more ruffled and make lunch a sure thing; it’s not like York doesn’t know _exactly_ where each and every camera feed in this building goes, he could hack in when he gets to his desk and erase the evidence. Or, you know, transfer said evidence into his private collection for posterity. York hates to see good data go to waste–

The elevator dings; the doors open. North extracts his hand and steps out over the divider, still smiling, but it’s a bit wicked now, instead of just kind. “Até logo.” _See you soon_. God, this asshole. York likes him already.

“Yeah,” York says. “Later.”

The doors are closing. York shoves his hands in his pockets so he won’t try and reach out and hold them open; he’s sorry to see North go, but the less York talks the less likely he is to say something colossally stupid. He’ll try not to talk so much at lunch. He mostly just wants to listen to North, anyway, he’s got a nice voice, and oh boy, York is fucked.

Instead it’s North that puts an arm out, and the doors jump back open with a clunk.

“Remind me to hug you later,” he says, and laughs outright when York gapes at him. “I’ve heard I give great hugs.” Then he’s turning around and through the glass sliding doors of the Aeronautics Division before York can reply.

York spends the rest of the ride up to the 20th floor with his face burning.

He’s going to _kill_ Wash.


	15. Bearhug- North/Wash/York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr small fic. North/Wash/York modern AU. PG.

York gets in around 6 am. He’s not proud. It’s just– job took a little longer than usual, and things taking longer means things going wrong, and things going wrong means adrenaline rush. So his “shift” went a little late and then he had to go for a run to get his ya-yas out, because the last thing he wants to do is come home to his worrywart boyfriends with fresh scrapes on his knees and elbows and be shaking all over the place. Between the lap around the city and the shower he nabbed at the Y, though, he’s got himself together by the time the sun’s coming up, even if he is still wearing yesterday’s clothes.

North’s apartment is on the fourth floor. York takes the stairs at a jog. Wash will be awake; maybe there will be coffee. York would kind of like to collapse, but he has his other job to get to in a few hours, the one he _does_ get a W-2 for. 

The kitchen is empty, but there’s a fresh pot on the burner, filling the room with sweet scents.

“I am blessed,” York says aloud, and pours himself a mug. He should probably eat, but he’s still a little queasy. Later. “Wash?”

No response. York leans his head out into the living room, but there’s no one there, either. The bathroom door is open; empty.

There’s a muted thump from down the hall, towards the bedroom.

“If I’m missing morning sex,” York grumbles, wrestling the fridge door open with his foot “I’m gonna be upset.” He drops a glug of milk into the mug, stirs with his finger. Spoons are for people who haven’t been awake for twenty six hours. 

The bedroom door is open, too, but he’s not missing morning sex. He’s not… entirely sure what he’s missing, at the moment.

“Help me,” Wash rasps.

York stands in the doorway and takes a long, slow sip of the coffee, surveying the room. North’s still under the covers, at least from the waist down, and Wash is fully dressed. But North has him in what looks like a cross between a trunk hold and a bear hug, plastered up against Wash from behind with his arms around Wash’s chest and his sheet-covered thighs pinning Wash’s legs to the bed.

“Seriously,” Wash says. “I can’t move.” He wiggles a little, and York sees North’s arms tighten. 

North makes his sleepy snuffling sound into the back of Wash’s neck.

“Aww.” York can’t keep from grinning. “Look at you. You tried to wake him up, didn’t ya? Gotta be quick, man. Like lightning.”

“ _Obviously_ ,” Wash flaps one hand weakly against his thigh. “I wasn’t fast enough. Could you _please_ –”

“Nah man,” York says “I value my freedom, he’s a brown belt, dude doesn’t fuck around.”

“He is _so_ heavy,” Wash moans, flopping his head back into the pillow. “How is he so heavy, he’s like a string bean–”

“Hey now.” York steps up to the bedside table, sets the coffee down with only a tiny twinge of reluctance “that’s _my_ improbably heavy string bean you’re talking about, okay, so let’s just– woah!” He’s dragged down onto the bed and caught in a clinch before his already jangled reflexes can do anything about it.

“ _Your_ string bean,” Wash says, drily. His face is right up against York’s, they’re pretty much stuck chest-to-chest between two very long, very insistent arms. 

North throws his leg over the back of York’s for good measure. “Now kiss,” he mumbles.

Wash rolls his eyes, but leans forward far enough to peck York on the nose. York tries not to feel offended. “You’re not asleep,” he accuses.

“Yes I am. Five more minutes.”

“You see what my morning has been like?” Wash squirms, kneeing York in the leg in the process. “He doesn’t do this when _you_ wake him up.”

York just sighs. “That’s because I blow him, and then that wakes _you_ up, and then, you know, and by the time we’re done it’s eight o clock anyway.”

Wash blinks. “I hadn’t… thought of it that way.”

“He’s very sneaky,” York says, drily, and resigns himself to his fate, resting his cheek on Wash’s collar and closing his eyes.

“Speaking of which,” Wash rumbles under him “where were you all night?”

“Workin’,” York mutters, and kisses the dip of Wash’s throat. Distraction time. 

“Nuh uh,” Wash breathes, and York feels him swallow, clear his throat. “Not good enough.”

“I didn’t get arrested,” York whines, and nibbles lightly.

A hand cups the back of his head, and since Wash is still just as tied up as he is, York knows it’s got to be North. He huffs; the hand guides his head to the side until he’s staring up at a very sleepy, very annoyed looking boyfriend.

“Hi,” York says. Flashes North a grin. Under him, Wash heaves a sigh.

North stares balefully at the both of them.

“We will discuss this later,” North decides, after a long, silent moment. “ _After_ the alarm goes off.”

“Who put him in charge?” Wash wonders. It’s a rhetorical question; York answers it anyway.

“We’re in bed,” York yawns, deciding he can spare an hour or so after all. Not like he’s gonna be late. “So. He’s in charge.”

“Mmm,” North agrees, and drops a kiss onto York’s shoulder.

They lay there in a clutch for a good three minutes, while North’s breath evens out into sleep. Gradually his arms loosen, and Wash rolls York off from on top of him. York goes, but immediately latches back onto Wash once they’re settled, cupping his face in his hands and kissing him for real. Got to get Wash back for that measly little peck earlier. Could give a guy the wrong impression, passing up a kiss like that.

Wash hums into York’s mouth, runs his hand down York’s side. York _might_ flinch a little when he passes over his ribs, but it’s not like anything’s _cracked_. Just a bruise. 

Wash breaks away with a grumble. He’s glaring at York. York tries his best ‘who, me?’ grin on him, to no effect.

“Later,” Wash says, and brings York’s left hand up to his face, kisses his palm lightly. York feels a surge of guilt– he didn’t mean to worry Wash. He never does. It’s just the job, and Wash is so sweet, so innocent, so _normal_ – what is he even _doing_ with a guy like York?

Wash folds both his hands around York’s left one, kisses along his swollen knuckles. Stops. Sniffs.

“Why,” he asks, slowly “does your hand smell like–” Sniffs again. “Did you… did you put your hand _into_ the coffee?”

York’s laughter startles North awake again, and before they know it they’re back in the bear hug of punishment. York drifts off with the sunrise breaking over his face and a tangle of warm limbs pinning him to the bed. 

All in all, it’s not a bad way to spend the morning.


	16. Beach Trip-- North/South

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked for Dakotacest: " maybe something about summers? like cut off shorts and bikini tops and beach trips together with sand in butt cracks because sex on the beach is fun but messy? or something of the sort?"
> 
> Obv. warning for twincest, but nothin explicit. 

“Today fucking sucks,” South hisses, from her perch on the picnic table. “I hate this house and I hate the fucking beach.”

“Hey now,” North says, emerging from the bathroom with a slightly dusty box of band-aids and a half-empty bottle of aloe vera, “only one of those is true. Someone was _very_ enthusiastic about the beach last night.”

“Last night,” South folds her arms across her chest in that way North’s seen her use on police officers and teachers– people she wants something out of. In the pink bikini top it just looks silly, like she’s hiding her nipples. “I didn’t get shit on by a fucking _bird_ or step on a _razor seashell of satan_ and the _fucking satanic sun wasn’t out_.”

“Nice tongue twister,” North acknowledges, and kneels down. There’s sand and grit between his toes. They’ve been here three days and there’s sand in everything, even the paperback novel he picked up from the drugstore on the drive down. “But come on, those are the only reasons? Foot, please.”

“Wow. In-se-cure.” South points her foot at him imperiously. North unscrews the cap of his water bottle and rinses it off; water sloshes between the boards of the porch, washing the wood dark. “No, brother mine, it was fucking _magical_. A plus sister fucking. You win the inbred award.”

“I don’t know why I bother,” North says, lightly, and dabs at the scrape along her instep. Fresh blood wells up in tiny globes, stains the pad of the band-aid when he smooths it on with his thumb. He kisses it for good measure, partly because he always has but mostly because it’s guaranteed to make South shriek. 

“Ughhh,” she whines, kicking weakly at his face, “ _and_ a foot fetish? You’re gross.”

“ _You’re_ gross,” North retorts automatically, and hops up onto the picnic table next to her before they can devolve into an endless back-and-forth. “Lemme see your shoulders.”

“How come you aren’t a lobster, huh?” South butts her head into North’s collar as he smooths aloe vera over her skin. It’s hot and dry under his palm, flaking slightly. She’s probably dehydrated.

North reaches back with his free hand for the water bottle. “Drink,” he says. “Also, because I fell asleep under the boardwalk, remember?”

South drinks. Swallows. Makes a sour face. “So did I?”

“And you crawled out around three AM,” North says, daring to rub the gel down onto her collar and chest “and when I tried to get you to come back, you called me a ‘rampaging dicknugget’.”

“I did?” South spins around on the table, making North wince internally at the thought of splinters “that once’s pretty good, actually. I’ll keep it.” She slings one leg over his and forces the both of them down until North’s lying with his bare back on the table and she’s curled up on top of him. 

“Um, sis?” North wonders, staring up past the top of her head at the ceiling. The bulb is out, and there’s deep layers of spiderwebs. 

“Nap-time,” South mumbles, into his chest. And then, “oh, wait.” She sits up for long enough to reach back and undo her top. North stares helplessly at her (pale, unburnt) breasts for all of two seconds before she leans down on one arm and very gently lays the bikini on top of his face, one cup over each eye. “There.”

North blinks. The world is shadowy and pink. South stretches out on top of him and fits one leg between North’s, her thigh pressing firmly against his crotch. 

“Um,” North says again, and then “are you–?”

“Mom and dad aren’t back till tomorrow,” South says, with a yawn so huge he hears her jaw crack. “Dicknuggets later. Nap-time now.”

“Okay,” North agrees, with no small amount of disappointment. “Can we not have nap-time on the splintery picnic table?”

South makes an exaggerated, obviously fake snoring noise, and North sighs, letting his head fall back against the boards. The movement dislodges a small avalanche of sand from a fold in the bikini top, and it cascades over his closed eyelids.

“This is why I bother,” North says aloud, and makes his own fake snore when South reaches down to pinch him on the stomach.


	17. Group Run- Carolina/York/North

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PG-13 for innuendo, Modern Hockey AU. Fluff. 1.4k.

Group Run lives [HERE ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4856189)now. Sorry for the confusion!


	18. Oranges-- North/York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> little post PFL doodad. PG, ~1k.

“Just between friends,” North says, the one time South bothers to ask him about it. She’s caught them on the rec room sofa, North’s hand up York’s shirt and York biting kisses along North’s collar. 

“Stress relief,” York says, when Carolina confronts him, and it’s true that it’s improved his performance, so she doesn’t much care. Just ‘be careful’, and 'don’t get in over your head’, and York had laughed outright at that, because what was there to get in? They were friends. Biding time.

The Project ends and it’s not even a question, whether York will go with them; he has nowhere else to go. He sleeps on the sofa, officially, but most nights he ends up falling asleep next to North, either because they were up late talking or yeah, sometimes they mess around a little, but so what? It’s convenient; North doesn’t mind York’s nightmares and he knows just how rough a hand should be and York doesn’t steal the sheets and he doesn’t ask North painful questions, and they just never found any reason to stop, really. Why mess with a good thing?

“How many years has it been,” Carolina asks him, over a maple scone and a coffee at the cafe down the road, huddled in a turquoise coat and green scarf, her hair grown out blonde and looking like some kind of tropical bird “don’t you think it’s time you promised him something?”

“Promises?” York blows on his mug, picks crumbs of clotted sugar off her paper napkin. “You mean North?”

Carolina gives him an unimpressed look, the same one she’s always given him when he’s missed something obvious, but there’s no satisfaction in it any more, no competitiveness. The only person losing here is York. There’s no more board, no more numbers, and he wonders what she’d do, without Niner to keep her steady. To tell her how she’s enough, just as she is. York’s tried to be that person for her, but Carolina’s never believed him. 

“Yeah, York,” she says, finally, and brushes his hand away, breaks the scone in half, scattering crumbs over the table “I mean North. It doesn’t seem fair to him.”

“He’s my friend,” York says, for lack of anything better to say. “If North has a problem, he’ll tell me.”

Carolina sighs, nibbles on her half of the scone. “But it’s not a problem for him. You could treat him like shit and it wouldn’t be a problem for him.”

“I don’t understand,” York admits, dragging his portion across the table by the napkin.

“I know,” Carolina says, with exhaustion, and fondness, and all the growing up she’s done in the last five years. “He’s your friend.”

York stops at the corner store on his walk back to the apartment, buys garbage bags and milk and an orange for North like always, round and heavy and imported from somewhere sunny. North’s in the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel, when York opens the door, and there’s dishes in the rack, the pipes gurgling, the radio blasting muffled punk rock from behind South’s door. It’s like any other Saturday.

North smiles at him, folds the towel into squares and sets it on the counter. York tosses him the orange, and he catches it one-handed. The fruit looks smaller in North’s hand than it did in York’s, but brighter. 

“I got milk,” York offers, and drops the garbage bags into the space under the sink, sets the carton in the refrigerator door.

“Thanks,” North says, setting the orange on the table. “How’s Carolina?”

“Lina’s Lina,” York replies, and steps up into North’s space. It lands his eyes a solid inch below North’s, but only because York is wearing boots and North is barefoot. “She thinks you’re in love with me.” This is the conclusion he’s come to, after his walk. 

North just hums. “And what do you think?”

York lets his head tip forward, rests his brow on North’s collar. He smells like fabric softener and warmth and dish soap. “Dunno. Dunno what I think.”

North sets a damp palm on the back of his neck, plays with York’s hair with his fingertips. “Would it bother you? If I was?”

“I never–” York sniffs. “Never thought about it. Really.” He loops his arms around North’s waist, hugs him tight. He likes North like this, shoes off. They fit together just right like this, North’s chin settling on top of York’s head, North’s free hand resting broad and flat on the small of York’s back. 

“I know,” North rumbles, and York can hear him smiling. “Thinking has never been your strong suit.”

“Rude,” York informs him, but he’s smiling, too. 

North reaches under York’s chin and tilts his head up, and York goes willingly, meets North’s lips with his own curved. It’s soft, and wet, and between the crackle of the radio and the floorboards shifting under them and the light coming in from the window heating York’s left side, it’s easy to just fall into it, lose himself– but it’s not anything new. North’s always kissed him like this, in the mornings, when there’s nowhere to be and no one around but the two of them. It doesn’t make York’s heart pound or his hands tingle or his throat hurt, and he doesn’t see sparks. It’s just North, carding a hand gently through York’s hair and making that low, subsonic sound that reminds York of some giant cat, purring its contentment. It’s just North, with broad back that York can press his hands against, big nose and big hands and too much gentleness. 

“Maple,” North whispers, when they’ve broken apart, a scant inch between them.

“Eat your orange,” York tells him.


	19. Nightmare-- North/Wash/York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst. PG. for 'librarian' meme on tumblr, which got me this: “'but in my dream you were a weird stone man/ who sleepwalked in, whose features did not change"– ‘December 2nd’ p. 45 from Anne Sexton, Love Poems

It’s not Wash’s nightmare that wakes North up; Wash doesn’t make noise when he dreams, just tosses and turns and usually that’s enough to jolt York awake and they let North know in the morning. But York’s not there, and North wakes up to the bunk door hissing open and the light from the hall, wakes up to Wash’s silhouette staggering out of the room. 

He doesn’t know why he follows. Wash is probably just going to find something to eat, but North’s been on edge, too, with York gone. Their makeshift bed, two bunks pushed together lengthwise, is just big enough for three, but being alone in it feels cold and empty, and Wash isn’t heading towards the mess. Instead, North watches him turn towards the med bay, watches him stand stock still in the middle of the corridor, staring at the leaderboard where it glows blue at the end of the hall.

“Wash?” He’s quiet. He’s never heard of Wash sleepwalking, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. The leaderboard haunts all of them, even though Wash doesn’t talk much about his rank. It would make sense for that anxiety to come out in dreams. “Are you awake?”

“Something’s wrong,” Wash says. His fists clench. He sounds lucid enough.

“Well–” North tries, gazing up at the board. It hasn’t changed much since they went to bed; Carolina must still be up running sims, because her score ticks up and down in the ten-thousandth of a percent. York’s still stuck at four, just below Wyoming (’I swear he gets points for facial grooming, it’s not fair, man’), and North is hanging on at six, just below his sister. He doesn’t mind being at the bottom of the board. So long as he’s still on it, and that’s not a very generous thought, considering how Wash hasn’t crept onto the count since Texas showed up, but–

“I saw him,” Wash says. “He came into the room.”  
  
“In your dream,” North prods. “You had a nightmare.”  

“Not just a–” Wash spins around on his heel quick enough to make North flinch. His face is drawn and pale. “He had both eyes. Something’s wrong.”

“A dream,” North repeats, and dares to step forward, loops his arms around Wash’s shoulders. Wash leans into him, stiff and still smelling like sleep. “Just a dream, David. He’ll be back day after next.” There’s been no word from York, but no news was good news when it came to black ops. “We’ll do something nice for him, okay?”

“No,” Wash mumbles into his collar. “Something’s wrong.”

“If something were wrong,” North says, very reasonably, “We would have heard.” 

Wash shakes his head, brushing hair over North’s neck and chin. North hugs him tighter. He forgets, sometimes, how young David is. All of them forget. 

“What if we cook him something?” North suggests. “Or you could let him win at pool, for once.”

No response. North swallows his sigh and just stands, running his hands up and down Wash’s back over the faded gray t-shirt. They probably shouldn’t be doing this in a public space, but no one’s up and about at this hour, and it’s nothing untoward. Just a nightmare. He wonders how York usually handles this, whether they talk. Probably not. (’We’re _guys_ , North’.)

The leaderboard blinks again, and North looks up, expecting to see Carolina’s score fluctuating, but instead the blue glow flickers once, twice, stuttering into a full refresh. The fourth row goes dark. 

Wash makes a soft little sob into North’s neck, and he watches, frozen, as the bars shift up, South four, North five, Washington six. 

It’s just an error. Maybe York’s suit went out of range, and who was in charge of programming the board, anyhow? No one awake at 0330, maybe the server was resetting, or something, or maybe Carolina finally broke the damn thing–

Down the hall, muffled behind their bunk door, North’s comm rings.

A moment later Wash’s does, too.


	20. Focus- Emily Grey/Carolina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NC-17 for vaginal fisting and yeah. 1k. Grey/Carolina for a 'librarian' prompt on tumblr which netted this: “…so that her body is not ripped into pieces. As can happen when her partner or she herself overcathects one part of her body and spells her and it out: one plus one plus one plus one…” p.65 An Ethics of Sexual Difference. Luce Irigaray

Emily Grey has the precision, focus, and tireless curiosity of a career scientific researcher. Carolina knew this going in, she really did. It was one of the things she liked about the doctor. If she needed a problem solved, sure, she went to Wash or Kimball– but running an army (a small country, really) the size of Chorus’ required more than just on-the-ground management. If she needed to understand something in all its intricacies, if she needed a dossier on Rebel history or a how-to manual for alien tech, there was _no one_ better than Emily Grey. Give Emily Grey a mystery and she’ll solve it down to a sub-atomic level, each and every time. Carolina knows how valuable it is, to have that kind of laser focus in her cabinet.

But couple Emily Grey’s intense concentration with her extensive knowledge of the human body, and you wound up with something utterly terrifying. Carolina knew this going in, too. She’s seen Emily torture people. Another reason she keeps Grey around– she makes UNSC advanced interrogation class look like preschool gym. Carolina hasn’t had insubordination problems among the medical staff in _ages_.

So there are a lot of reasons, really, why Carolina Church should know better by now. 

“Did you know that in the twenty-first century the mainstream scientific community dedicated countless hours and funding to disproving the existence of vaginal orgasms?” Emily asks, idly rotating her wrist and twisting her fingers within Carolina’s body. “Apparently the idea that people– women, specifically– respond differently to sexual stimuli was very threatening.”

Carolina has her hands in her own hair, at this point. She’s probably pulling some out, but she can’t bring herself to care.

“Of particular concern,” Emily chirps, and Carolina can hear the bottle working on the table, two pumps nearly as loud as her own heartbeat in her ears “despite ten to fifty percent of female-bodied people reporting that they regularly experienced both G-spot stimulation and ejaculation during orgasm, major urological and gynecologic journals routinely published studies claiming that no such phenomena could be empirically proven! Exhale, please.”

“That’s–” Carolina swallows, and has to squeeze her eyes shut when Emily’s knuckles slide in; Grey has small hands but it feels huge, so impossibly huge– “That’s– ah!”

“You didn’t exhale,” Emily notes, disapproving. “I _am_ a medical doctor, you know. You should listen to me.” 

Sparks are shooting across Carolina’s closed lids, and the hand is moving deeper, deeper, palm folded and fingers pointed like the head of a snake and god, it feels like Grey has her whole _arm_ – 

“Anyway.” Grey’s free hand closes around Carolina’s knee, shifts her leg open a few inches wider on the cot. She’s got a glove on that one, too, and Carolina’s breath stutters out, half in terror and half in awe, because _what_ is Emily planning to do with that other hand, Jesus christ– “I can’t help but wonder what my esteemed colleagues of the twenty-twenties would have thought, if they’d had access to _you_.”

The hand inside her moves, expands, palm spreading open, and Carolina has to let go of her hair before she removes it all accidentally. She grabs the stretcher bars instead, but they’re just hollow titanium and the left one bends inward as she writhes, creaking. 

“Oh dear,” Emily says. “That’s the second time you’ve done that. I really wish you’d allow Requisitions to source more durable bed rails.”

“Fuck you,” Carolina manages, and twists again, digging her heels into the cot. 

“Not if you insist on damaging my equipment,” Emily scolds, and balls her hand into a fist so quickly that Carolina screams, arching up and feeling her face and chest break out in nervous sweat. She has to be going into shock, this can’t be physically possible–

“My point being,” Emily continues, grabbing Carolina’s hip with her free hand and forcing her back down onto the mattress “you could have set research forward several decades on your own!” Her thumb knuckle digs into something soft deep inside Carolina’s body, and she grays out for a moment, heart pounding. “You would have been a medical marvel.”

“Please,” Carolina begs, eyes prickling with frustrated tears. “Please, _please_ –”

Emily just hums, grinds that knuckle down harder, twitches her wrist so that it’s making sharp, bright little circles. So precise, so relentlessly on target, and Carolina sobs something obscene into the air of the med bay, breath hot and damp.

“What truly puzzles me,” Emily says, dragging her free hand down Carolina’s hip to her vulva and resting her latex-covered thumb gently over Carolina’s clit. “Is that no one bothered to perform a study with live subjects until nearly 2075! It’s as if the spirit of scientific inquiry were completely absent.”

Carolina’s past words. She’s pinned, dissected, and Emily’s still talking casually overhead, like they’re having an actual conversation, and– Emily’s thumb presses down hard, too hard, and Carolina’s entire body jolts into a shudder, pain and slick and unbearable fullness. She probably screams again. She doesn’t care. Let the whole base hear her, she’s going to die like this–

“See?” Emily pulls her hand out with a faint pop, and there’s something trickling down Carolina’s leg, flowing back onto her buttocks and dampening the cot under her. “Ejaculate! How anyone could mistake that for urine is beyond me.”

Carolina whimpers. The sound of Emily stripping the gloves off and depositing them in a disposal bin is faint and dreamy. 

“We’re lucky to live in a less barbaric age,” Emily says, and pats her gently on the knee with a bare hand, dry and soft and clinical. “I have to go drain a cerebral shunt in Sector Eight, but feel free to stay as long as you’d like! You seem out of breath.”

“Uh.” Carolina contributes.

“Goodbye for now!” Emily chirps, and vanishes out the slide door.

Carolina slowly uncurls her hands from the bed rail.


	21. Assume- York & Delta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~500 words for a tumblr 'librarian' prompt which netted: “Socrates responds with a dodgy etymology of his own”. p. 76 Plato’s Protagoras, Denyer commentary.

_I am sorry, Agent York_ , Delta says, sounding anything but _When you found yourself at a loss for words, I simply assumed that you would appreciate my assistance._

“Well I didn’t, okay, guy?” York slams another shot back, dropping the empty glass upside-down on the bar. He’s in civvies, so Delta’s not projected anywhere, just chattering greenly away like he always is these days, deep in the back of York’s head. “And I don’t. Appreciate it.” It probably looks like he’s talking to himself, but what the fuck ever. Jimminy Cricket here already blew York’s chance at getting laid tonight, may as well let the rest of the bar think he’s crazy. “Don’t do that again, okay, make words just. Come out of my mouth. Or at least don’t make them fucking terrible.”

_I simply transformed your own already articulated thoughts into spoken language. You appeared to be stuck at the verbal stage of the process._

“Yeah, well that ‘stuck’ is my filter, okay? It’s there so I _don’t_ say every thing that pops into my head.” Like ‘God, I want to fuck your tits’. Just. For example.

_I fail to see–_

“Yeah,“ York says, signalling for another round. “You _do_ fail, buddy, we are gonna have to work on this whole partnership thing. There have to be, ya know. Boundaries.”

_Agent York, when you gave me access to specific brain centers, I could not help but assume–_

“Okay, see?” York rummages in his pockets, drops another five-cred piece on the counter when the bartender slides him a shot. “Teachable moment. They call it an ‘assumption’ because it makes an ‘ass’ out of 'u’ and 'me’, okay?”

_I am unfamiliar with that etymological theory_ , Delta chimes. 

“It’s not a theory, okay? That’s what it means. As in, everyone loses.”

_Agent York, I do not currently have access to the UNSC Linguistic Database, but I am reasonably certain that the term in question is derived from the Latin verb stem sumo, sumere–_

“No sumo,” York takes his shot. He’s not nearly drunk enough for this. “That’s fat dudes wrestling. I’m not into that, okay?” He swallows. “I mean, whatever you think you see back there, in my deepest darkest subconscious. Still not into that.”

_Again, you are making an erroneous, although explicable, connection between two things which sound the same but do not share a genealogy. I suspect the 'sumere’ root, combined with an alpha privative–_

York waves his hand desperately. “More liquor, before we start talking privates. Seriously, you are a weird little dude.”

_The consonant swap in the perfect root, sumpsi, would certainly account for the English variation between the verb ‘assume’ and the noun form ‘assumption’. Can you provide me with similar evidence for your theory?_

“No theory,” York repeats. “You’re an ass. It’s a fact, like gravity.”

_Well,_ Delta says _I can see we have quite a bit to work on, including the scientific method._

“You do you, guy,” York allows. “Just remember that you’re an ass.”  


	22. Benchpress-- North/York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some gym porn.

York heaves the bar back onto the rack with a soft grunt and hangs there from his arms, panting slightly. “Hey. Get me another twenty-five, would ya?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” North squints down at him, noting that York has yet to uncurl his hands from the grip. “Maybe you should give it a rest, huh?”

“Bro,” York whispers with deep, embarrassingly _genuine_ hurt “you’re killing me, here.”

“You can’t beat her,” North replies, trying for his best ‘soothing older brother’ voice and falling flat, as always “Please just get over it. For all our sakes.”

“It’s _unnatural_ ,” York hisses, and drums his fingers on the bar. “I’m sorry, dude, there is just no way a girl should have pecs like that. I don’t mean to sound sexist.”

North just stares, which usually gets his point across just fine when York says shit he _knows_ damn well isn’t appropriate. Especially about his sister.

“She weighs more than I do,” York whispers, rather meekly. “I learned that today, did you know that? She’s _two ten_.”

“She has five inches on you, York. At least.”

“Yeah, but. Twenty-five more, man, come on, just a set–”

“You’re going to sprain something.”

“You are not providing the moral support expected of a spotter,” York wheedles, and kicks his heels weakly against the base of the bench. The rubber soles of his athletic shoes squeak against the metal. “Where’s my swolemate, huh? Come on.”

North sighs. “Fine. Twenty.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Ten percent rule, York.” North pulls two ten-pound weights off the rack, fitting them onto York’s bar. “You said a set. You want to do one-rep maximum load bullshit, get Maine to spot you.”

York huffs out a long, frustrated breath. “Fine. Six, then.”

“Your funeral,” North says, and braces himself behind the bar, arms poised to pick up any slack. 

“I can see your jock,” York informs him cheerfully, and North groans. Great. Tell the guy he can’t have everything he wants, and suffer the consequences. “It’s _purple_. Did you have to order that special, or–”

“Lift.”

“It’s just a little, you know. Is all I’m saying.” York cracks his knuckles, grabs the bar, and lifts it out of the rack, lowering it down to his chest. Exhales on the push up. “Gay.”

“This might come as a shock to you, but I _am_ gay.” North bends his knees to follow. He’s really not the best person to spot for York. Wash is closer to his height. But they’ve been work-out buddies for so long at this point that he can’t really imagine switching it up. Besides, York would complain, and Maine isn’t much of a conversationalist. “Not that the color of the jock has any relevance.”

“Nah man, I think it’s plenty relevant. Order the purple jock, it’s like a big neon sign to every gay guy in Requisitions.” Another two reps, same speed and control, but York’s face is reddening up again. “North Dakota, open for business.”

“I kind of have a theme going, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m sure the gear monkeys understand.”

“See, you say that. But I’ve seen your laundry bag, dude, someone in there is leaving you little presents.” York’s breathing hard on the third and fourth reps, and North lets his mind drift away from their banter to keeping an eye on his chest and arms, watching for spasms or weakness. He’d feel it in the bar before he saw it, if York needed a break, but it would be a shame to pass up the view. York has a very well-defined chest, and because he knows it, he lifts shirtless whenever he can get away with it.

And North, of course, is the _definition_ of an enabler. Can’t think of anything he’d rather enable, than the opportunity to watch sweat run down York’s ribs as the muscles of his chest flex and bulge. His arms are nice, too, from the big flat knuckles clenched to paleness around the bar to the thick cords of his forearm, where a vein visibly pulses– round, smooth biceps and the crevice of his armpit, dark with soft curls of hair. 

“It’s not my fault you don’t get a mint with your linens,” North returns. “You should be nicer to the staff.”

“Don’t be– unh– obtuse.” York’s upper lip lifts in a snarl as he heaves the bar up a fifth time. “Think it’s that twinky-looking guy, Leon? Leaving you entire chocolate bars.”

“Don’t be rude.” North frowns. “Wait, what?”

“Oh,” York says, bringing the bar down against his chest again, and grinning up at him, toothy and red in the face. His forehead is sleek with sweat. “Right. Well I eat them, see? But trust me, they’re in there.”

North laughs; can’t help himself. “You’re fucking with me.”

“Nah man.” York pants, his shoulders flexing against the bench. North sees his stomach muscles and obliques working, too, tensing as he holds the bar in place. “He’s into you. Also like, sixteen at the _most_.” 

“Last one,” North coaxes, tapping York’s knuckles. “Come on.”

“Seriously, I think he falsified his enlistment docs, he’s always following you–”

“Uh huh. One more.”

“Fuck,” York grunts, and plants his head back against the bench, powering into the lift with an exhale that sounds like he’s emptying out his lungs entirely. His triceps are spasming. North keeps his fingers light under the bar, ready to take the weight, but York heaves it up all the way after a moment, a full extension. “God. Shit.”

“And that’s six.” North helps him lift the bar up and onto the rack, where it settles with a clang. “Is that a new max, for you?”

York shakes his head weakly, letting his arms flop down off the bench, fingers trailing on the floor. “Nah. Just been a long day.”

North glances down at his data pad, propped up against his half-empty water bottle and balled-up towel. The lock screen reads 00:06. Damn. When did _that_ happen? “No shit. It’s past midnight.”

“You just notice?” York quirks a grin at him, runs a limp hand through sweaty, disheveled hair. “Reggie left an hour ago.”

North scans the gym– the lighting never changes, and it’s not like the doors are loud. It’s easy for him to just… not pay attention. Especially when there are other, sweatier things to pay attention to. But sure enough, the room is empty– no whir of treadmills or pounding of feet or crash of dropped dead lifts.

Just York, breathing hard and staring up North’s shorts at his (apparently) homosexual jock strap. “So he did.”

York’s grin widens. “Yeah. I’m tired.”

“Uh huh.” North folds his arms on the bar, rests his chin on his wrists. 

“But not like, _tired_ tired. You get me?”

North gives him the Stare, to little effect, and when York waves his arms at him weakly North gives in and helps him up off the bench with only a minimum of eye rolling.

* * *

 

“So tell me about these chocolate bars you’ve been filching,” North says, mildly, and twists his wrist.

York groans loudly, easily audible over the pathetic trickle of the low-capacity ship shower. “Uhhnn. Um. Almonds?” The fingers of his left hand scrape against the tiled wall, but the right is curled tight against North’s arm where North holds him around the waist, short blunt nails digging into North’s skin. 

“I _like_ almonds,” North whispers into his ear, catching sweat and blank-tasting drops of recycled water on his lips, breathing the fading scent of this morning’s hair gel. He half regrets letting York pull him straight into the shower, would have preferred to have him up against the lockers, or maybe right there on the weight bench, all musky and rich with a full day’s variety of York-smells– soap, sweat, the dusting of talc powder they wear under the suit and the plasticky scent of neoprene that seeps into their skin anyway, gun oil and hair product and deodorant and _male_. Next time, next time the gym is free he’ll just–

Grab York just like this, through the loose polyester mesh of his shorts, tug and knead until York’s kicking his own clothes off over his shoes, tripping and panting and _laughing_ –

So they’re in the shower, sure. York never managed to get the shorts all the way off, they’re in a soggy pile around his sneakers, stretched as far apart as he can get his legs like this. His socks have to be getting wet, too. North doesn’t care. Helps the height difference, a little, and he can grind right up against York’s ass like this, instead of his lower back. Can feel up and down his chest, too, with a free hand like he wanted to at the bench, over those tight, hairy abs. North rubs at a nipple with his palm, clutches greedily around York’s right pec, warm and swollen from lifting. 

“Thought–” York grunts, trying to work his hips forward but North’s got him good, off balance and slippery and literally _by the dick_ – “thought you were allergic. Was doin’ you a favor.”

“A favor, huh.” North lets his hand go slack, lets warm water and slick soap run down his arm and into his palm. “Sounds to me like you’re jealous.”

“Of Little Leon? Nah man, just–” and York gasps when North smooths the flat of his palm over his head, shakes when North cinches his thumb and forefinger tight around the shaft and _tugs_ “Just makin’ sure you don’t do anything you’d regret, is all. Gun fanboys, very convincing. Could get a guy like you in trouble.”

“Trouble,” North hums, trailing fingertips along the thick vein that throbs at the base of York’s dick, following the branches blind. Yeah, he knows York’s body, all his planes and ridges and little quirks, right down to the slight rightward lean of his cock. It’s a nice cock, short and fat and the right size for North’s broad hand. “Like, say, fraternizing with someone on board.”

“With _staff_ ,” York corrects. “Also, did I mention the young thing, because–”

North heaves them both forward into the wall, and York grunts in surprise, sneakers squealing on the wet tile of the shower. His whole body tenses under North’s, back and ass and thighs, and North growls at the feel of it, ruts harder into him until he’s pressing his own hand tight, pinned between York’s bony hip and the ceramic tile. The head of York’s cock throbs against his palm, sore and needy. North knows he’s leaking, even if he can’t tell what’s shower water and what’s pre-come. 

“I’m not interested in Leon from Requisitions,” North breathes, angling his own hips so he’s sliding between York’s firm cheeks. Fuck, that’s nice. He moves his free hand from York’s waist to grab one. Squeezes, presses, moves York just right and then pins him there with his weight and height. Doesn’t work like this on the mat; York almost always out-maneuvers him in a fight, reach or no reach, but like this he doesn’t even struggle. It’s like he _wants_ North to hold him down, and what a lucky coincidence it is, that North would like nothing _better_.

A whole lot about York is lucky coincidences, as far as North’s been able to tell. He’s a good guy to have around.

“Why would I need anything else, huh?” North gasps, rolling his hips. “Do _you_ need something else? Besides my candy, you little thief.”

“Nuh– nuh uh. This is fine, this is good.” York’s forehead slides along the tile wall until he’s resting on his cheek, his good eye gleaming back at North over his shoulder. His hair’s come completely free of the hold, flopping over his brow in dark streaks. His face is still red, but water droplets are clinging to his eyelashes and the faint shadow of stubble, his lips are parted and pink, swollen where he’s bitten at them–

“Good?” North asks, because it’s more than good. He doesn’t know _what_ it is, exactly, but he _wants_ it, all the time now. York is a distraction, and that should bother North more than it does. 

“Yeah, good. It’s excellent, okay, come on–” York whines, squirms under him, and then it’s stuttering little whimpers as he rocks hard against North’s hand flat on the wall, rubbing himself off, and North feels him come, a spurt against his sensitive palm hotter than the water. And yeah, it’s hot, it’s always an ego boost to feel a guy lose it in his hand, but what North really loves is how York’s muscles jerk and spasm against his chest, just like they do when he strains on the bench, pushing himself to a limit and then past it. How York goes slack and soft and easy afterward, because even though he made that last rep it was just a little bit too much, a little bit too intense. How York has to lean into the wall, panting, for a minute, utterly at North’s mercy, and still with that smug, infuriatingly charming smile–

It should bother him. It _should_.

"You owe me a chocolate bar," North grumbles, and comes with his eyes closed, face pressed hard against the hot skin of York's neck.


	23. Snow. Person of Interest Fusion-- York, Delta, PG.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is from an AU fusion of Person of Interest with York in the 'role' of Harold Finch and Delta as the Machine. No significant spoilers for POI. Gen, PG, mention of a sporting accident.

York dreams about snow. Not light flakes against a gray sky, or sludgy shush that creeps down the street between tire treads and boots, not the kind of snow he sees in the city, but the wild snow of Chamonix.  

It's hard and packed under his nose and mouth, sticking to the bits of skin left uncovered by his hood and gaiter, gluing his eyelashes together. The snow is black. Everything is black. It's night time, and he's far off the trail. No light pollution. Everyone back at the lodge is drunk, and even if they weren't York suspects they wouldn't miss him for a long, long time. That's the reputation he's gotten for himself. The kind of guy who just goes missing, sometimes.

York's drunk, too, a little. Just in case he needed any more help getting hypothermic as quickly as possible.

He's breathing shallowly into the snow, just enough that there's a slick of water over his lips and chin. He's afraid to move his head, to free his nose and mouth, because he can't feel his legs at all, they don't even hurt, and Smirnoff or no, York's not stupid. He doesn't want to make it any worse. Even though he's probably going to die out here, he doesn't want to make it any worse until he absolutely has to. If he starts to lose consciousness, that's when he'll do it. He'll just start dragging himself by the arms. He doesn't know how far off the main slope he is, but at least he can figure out which way is up. He won't just lie here and die, leave them to find him right where he landed. That wouldn't look good at all, on the obit. Heroic last breath, though, that ought to get Leonard some sympathy, even if Mother's stock drops like a stone--

Fucking Leonard. He should have known better than to invite York up here. York doesn't need buttering up. He's already agreed to build the damn thing.

Something bright shines down on him from above.

"God in heaven," York mumbles, letting the light leak in. That's when he knows he's dreaming. This isn't what happened. He couldn't speak, when it happened.

Boots crunch in the snow behind him. The chopper blades whip up wind, scattering ice and pine needles, making the trees shiver. York rolls over onto his side, because he can. His feet are still strapped to the board. It sticks in the drift, sealed in ice.

York watches the boots, the legs they're attached to. Tall leather boots, buckled, pointed at the front. Thin soled, stylish city shoes. She barely makes a dent with them. She glides.

Impossibly, York feels himself sweating. Carolina stops mere inches from his face.

"Edith Wharton," she says, mildly. "Didn't you learn anything in school?"

"I hated that book," York rasps.

Carolina tilts her head, her hair falls over one shoulder, and then it's Grey smiling at him. Her face is static, a fuzz and hum, a low fidelity crackle. Her lips and teeth are a .jpeg artifact, a pixelated composite of every photo he's ever seen of her. Glasses flicker over the bridge of her nose, earrings glint and vanish. Her eyebrows, her hair, they all shift and change. She's like him. There's dozens of her, all equally fictitious.

"I know how to hurt you, Ahmad," she says.

He's nothing like her.

York jerks awake, can't feel his legs. His face is in the pillow. He won't move his head, it'll just make it worse, he's going to die out here, they're never going to find him, he’s alone, he’s _alone_ and he's going to die out here---

His bedside dock alarm blinks on. "Today is: August. Sixth. Two thousand and. Twelve. It is: Four. Forty three. AM."

York breathes shallowly into the fabric. It's warm from his body heat.

"Your name is. Aaron. York. This is. Twelve. Twenty Seven. Hamilton Drive. It is Sixty. One. Degrees--"

"Thanks," York croaks, and finally rolls over, staring up at the ceiling, the camera in his light fixture. "Thanks, Delta, I'm fine."

He closes his eyes. The machine can see him. The city is never dark enough to hide from it, even indoors. Delta can read his lips in the tiny green LED of the bedside dock, the red blink of a smoke alarm, the smoky glow at the edges of York's curtains. Delta protects him, because Delta protects itself, and York is Admin. That was never his intention, but York made a machine that can learn. That can _think_.

Across the dark room, a servo in the chair whirs. The empty frame of it drives over to him, backs up, turns, backs in again at the side of the bed, easily within reach. York's alarm will go off in a little over two hours, and Delta knows-- Delta has _learned_ \-- that interrupted or tense sleep makes York's legs worse in the morning.

York breathes the warm air of the apartment long and slow, until he feels himself relax.

"I am. Here." Delta says from the tinny dock speaker, and York sleeps.


	24. Subgroup. Person of Interest Fusion-- York, Delta, North. PG.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is from an AU fusion with the TV show Person of Interest (with York as Harold Finch, North as John Reese, and Delta as the Machine). No major POI spoilers. Gen, PG.

 

_Delta watches Mr. North's apartment, and Mr. North knows it._

* * *

 

It’s another example of how unusual Mr. North is, as an object of inquiry. Two examples. One, Mr. North knows that Delta watches. Two, Mr. North _wants_ Delta to watch. Delta knows this, because Mr. North found four of the six cameras his first day living at the apartment, and the other two three days in. He did not cover them, or remove them, or re-arrange them to ensure privacy within the flat. Instead he tilted the lens of the hallway grate camera precisely fifteen degrees North Northwest, which eliminated a blind spot at the entrance to the bedroom.

Sometimes when Mr. North is eating in the kitchen, or doing pushups next to the sofa, he will look over at one of the cameras in a light fixture, or stuck to the base of the coffee grinder, or on the face of a clock. He will watch Delta back through one of the machine's near-infinite pairs of eyes. He never looks nervous. Sometimes, he will smile. He will mouth 'hello.'

Mr. North is not a threat. Delta has learned this, but it still does not know what, exactly, Mr. North _is_. He is not Admin. He knows that Delta watches, and he is not Admin, and yet he is not a threat. Delta does not have a category for that.

Mr. North is not a threat. Mr. North protects the Admin, and by extension, the machine itself. In many ways, Mr. North does what the machine does. Mr. North is like another machine. Something that is like Delta. Something that values what Delta values, and is not a threat.

* * *

 

"Oh, come _on_ ," York sighs, when Delta spies Mr. North leaving his apartment at 0520 in the morning, dressed in running shoes and shorts. Delta follows Mr. North down the street, casually adjusting the timing on red lights and pedestrian walk signs so that Mr. North can maintain his pace uninterrupted all the way to Central Park. "That's just unnecessary. Do you know how many urban planners and engineers very carefully calculated optimal traffic flow---"

_1304_ , Delta replies, in an otherwise blank command prompt window.  _Priority. Assist Friend._

"Ohhhh no," York says, and drags up a notepad window, typing frantically, "we are not doing this. Where did you put him?" 

_Subgroup Friend. Content: One. Rename Subgroup?_

"No, asshole, I don't want to _rename_ the fucking subgroup, I need you to not construct subgroups without my--- what the--?"

_Subgroup Parameters_ , Delta hums, listing them. _Read only. Rename Subgroup?_

"This is what I get," York mutters, scrolling through the list. "This is what I get for locking myself out of--" he laughs. "You think he's like _you_?"

_Shared priorities. Cooperative. Familiar._ Delta retrieves entries from the twenty most commonly referenced online dictionaries and highlights the relevant terms. _Affection_.

"Geez. If you like him so much, why don't you marry him? No, don't answer that--"

Delta takes hold of an NYPD segway and moves it, and its rider, gently out of North's path. On the screen, the cop flails in surprise, pounding her fist on the controls.

York sighs. "Okay, just. You can leave him there, but--" he keys in a few factors, grades of exceptions. "Don't prioritize Assist unless we're on a number. Or unless there's imminent danger, or unless he asks you--"

Delta thrums its displeasure by way of York's tower fan.

"Start valuing some people over others," York warns, "and you'll fuck up Core. You know that."

_Asset_ , Delta protests.

"Oh, but see, you didn't put him _there_ , did you?" York pulls up the current Asset subgroup, just to be snide. Everything on it is inanimate; account and routing numbers, deeds to property, vehicles and databases and wi-fi networks. Even Simmons and Grif are only listed by way of their phones. "You put him in _Friend_."

North leaves the park heading West and finally hits a light. He drops to his hands and toes and does push ups while he waits.

"See," York insists, bringing the video to the front of his stack. "He does just fine. He has his own routine. Don't assume you know what he wants." He pauses, watches the white square around North's head dip up and down with each rep. It has his coordinates along the top, and at the bottom right-hand corner-- there it is. The designation. Friend. York frowns at it.

He turns the earwig on remotely, watches North tilt his head in surprise, watches his mouth move. "What's up?" His voice is flat, serious. He's waiting to hear where the fire is. Waiting for orders.

"Nothing, just--" York sees North’s shoulders relax, just a little, and then he's upright again, but clearly heading in a different direction than the one he intended. He's coming towards the library. "You haven't been sweet-talking my little science project, have you?"

"What?"

"Delta," York explains, watching North dodge dog walkers and a young woman pushing a double-wide stroller "It likes you."

"Course it does. I'm a nice guy, aren't I?"

York rolls his eye. "It thinks you two are… friends."

North's mouth quirks up, small but obvious in the grainy feed. "That so."

York feels his own mouth flatten into an unhappy line. North is completely oblivious to the philosophical, not to mention practical, problems of the machine making subjective value judgements about the worth of individual lives. No matter that York does the same; he's human. He has an excuse. The whole point of the machine was that it was supposed to be above that. An all-seeing, indifferent consciousness. The kind of god humanity actually _needed_ , not the kind people _thought_ they wanted-- petty, biased, and vengeful.

York spares a moment, as usual, to acknowledge the supreme arrogance of his own project. At this point it's mostly a formality, but he's wary of ever forgetting it. That way lies true hubris.

"You know, York," North says with that low voice of his, slightly rough from exertion, "if you didn't want us to bond, maybe you shouldn't have set my apartment up so that it can watch me take a shit. Familiarity breeds comfort."

"Contempt," York corrects, needlessly. North's bullshitting him. The whole 'I'm big and dull and I don't read books' thing doesn't work on York, and North knows it. "Don't encourage it."

North steps away from the middle of the sidewalk, pauses by a row of newspaper boxes. York realizes why when Delta jacks into the dash cam of a police cruiser parked next to him, rotates the base until he can see North's face properly, at a much closer distance than the traffic cameras. He's frowning, and staring straight into the lens. "You mean that?"

"Yeah," York says, with no small amount of relief. North might not understand _why_ it's so important, but if York tells him it's serious, North will trust him. "Yeah, I mean it. It's important."

"Okay," North says, simply, and takes off down the street. "I won't, then. How does bagels sound for breakfast?"

York opens his mouth to say 'You don't need to come in', to say 'I don't have anything for you to do yet', and then shuts it. Maybe the reason North talks to the machine in the first place is that he doesn't have anyone else to talk to. Maybe North is _lonely_. It hadn't occurred to York before.

"Bagels," he says, finally. "Sure. Pumpernickel? Tofu spread?"

North takes a sharp left down a public alley to avoid another light, and York loses him for a moment. "I think Ruth would worry, if I ordered anything else. She's decided you're my fussy vegan fiancée."

"I can't decide which part of that statement is the most offensive," York lies. It's clearly the 'vegan' part.

North chuckles, weaving between gridlocked cars. "I'll see you soon."

"Yeah," York says, already distracted by the thought of breakfast. He's getting too old to stay up all night like this, at least without breaks. But the city doesn't sleep, so neither does the job.

He takes a moment to navigate back to Subgroup Friend. Scrolls once more through the inclusion parameters. They're very specific. Delta would be hard-pressed to find another human being on the planet who fit into all of them. It makes York wonder why the machine bothered creating a category at all.

"Bothered by outliers? You're a little neurotic, aren't you," he muses, patting the monitor.

_Subgroup Friend_. Delta refreshes the command prompt window, impatient for input. For York to decide. _Rename Subgroup?_

Naming it something different won't change anything. Delta's already crossing the Rubicon, has been since York turned the damn thing on three years ago. It's a long, slow slog, but every step is forward. Every year there's more information, more devices, more eyes and ears. Delta grows and grows, learns and learns. Becomes more human by degrees.

_Cancel_ , York types, and reaches for his crutches. He'd like to at least brush his teeth and shave before North gets in. Especially if, as York now thinks is best, they’re going to talk. Be friendly. _Bond_.

York frowns, and pauses a few staggering steps down the hallway. Looks back over his shoulder at the workstation, as if he could see Delta’s intentions in the monitor array, just one of millions of nodes, millions of doors between the machine and the world. Surely--

“Gotta get more sleep,” he decides, and swings off down the hall.


End file.
